Year of the Tiger
by Copperhead
Summary: If Users don't start offering feedback for my fics, I will no longer post. ff.net is designed to be a forum for burgeoning authors, and if these authors are offered no insight to their work, what's the use of a public display like this?
1.

Year of the Tiger

Author's note: All characters are copyright their respective creators. I do not own Transformers and I am not affiliated with Hasbro or Takara, Mainframe or Alliance, nor should any affiliation be inferred, implied or assumed. Enjoy the fic. Historian's note: "Indeterminate Timeframe" events occur shortly after when "Master Blaster" and "Crossing the Rubicon" would have occured.   
  


**Year Of The Tiger: Being Part The Third of the Zodiac Arc   
Chapter One**

  


****Earth, Indeterminate Timeframe**   
"It's so peaceful," Tigatron murred, tail swaying in contentment. He growled playfully, rolling onto his back and swatted a paw at a passing butterfly.   
"In the face of war, any moment's rest is peaceful," Airrazor responded. "If only Megatron would give in and surrender... we'd all be in better shape."   
"Luxuries like that are few and far between," Tigatron muttered, still playing with his frien the butterfly. "Too bad, too... From what Cheetor tells me, Cybertron seems interesting. Replacing the organic jungle with an urban one might prove interesting."   
Airazor nodded her beak in approval. "Don't get your hopes up, love," she chuckled. "We don't even have two transwarp pods to rub together, and Hawksbill Magnus said he can't pinpoint our exact locations."   
"There is always hope, Airazor. You taught me that."   
The bird hopped onto Tigatron's stomach. "Confound me with your logic, big cat. Ain't that always the way it is?" The tiny falcon nuzzed the immense cat's stomach.   
"I hear something," Tigatron said after a few moments of silence. "It's coming closer and it's--"   
A flash of light engulfed them both before Tigatron had a chance to finish his sentence. The two felt themselves transforming involuntarily, beams of light tracing across their outer shells as they were ripped open, raped into their robot modes. "My love," Tigatron mouthed, extending his hand as they were pulled skyward.   
"Don't leave me," Airazor returned without voice, placing her hand into that of her big cat's.   
Then the peaceful slumber that was not death, not life-- not even some blind purgatory of the mind-- overtook them, stealing their lives from the world and the world from their lives.   
  
Copperhead leapt across the fallen treetrunks and scorched earth, Tyrannix close behind, as the two rushed through the woods. The comm was going wild with activity, from Maximal to Maximal, Predacon to Predacon, and a certain channel contained a very irate conversation between a certain Elder Maximal and a time-displaced Pseudo-Maximal Decepticon. The latter, despite its impetus as the possible destruction of space-time itself, struck Copper as somewhat comical.   
"It's this way," Copperhead called, rushing leftward, near a break in the forest wall. Tyrannix followed, his massive form downing trees left and right as he charged past.   
"I don't see it..." Tyrannix responded, pushing aside a treelimb that stood in their path. "How do you--"   
The dragon was caught short of breath by the sight from above. It was as if someone had brought down Unicron's head into this timeframe... but it was missing the horns.   
And it didn't particularly resemble Unicron. It looked more like...   
"STARSCREAM!" Copperhead roared, his optics flaring green. "I always knew he was ambitious, but never thought he'd be capable of something like that... Dragon, get me up there."   
Tyrannix nodded and complied, transforming to the form of an immense golden dragon. He grasped the relatively Copperhead in his talons and flapped his wings hard, providing hurricane force lift to the Autobot-sized dragon. "Up we go," he chortled, rising toward the odd craft that hung in the sky above them.   
  
Screamfire, as he jokingly referred to himself now, sat, locked into the massive floating throne. He cocked an eyebrow at the thoughts approaching... both were somewhat familiar; not thoughts and minds he'd encountered during his time in the Beast Wars, but two minds-- two souls-- he remembered from the past. Souls from the Great Wars. "Curiouser and curiouser," he muttered, allowing them within.   
****Earth, 2017**   
"You sure it's safe, Big bot?" Cavalier sniped.   
"It's safe," Prime rumbled. "For Primus' sake, transform."   
The black and white Autobot did as she was told, switching into the sportscar shell she wore. "Where are we headed anyway?"   
"Kup gave us this address, but he didn't say who our contact was."   
Cavalier "nodded" over the comm. Between herself and the nightwatch-blue and starlight-black car behind her, the streets were empty. "Doesn't feel right," Cav muttered, taking a curve a bit too fast. Her tires squealed against the pavement. Her companion was a bit slower and more steady in her pace, but both kept above fifty miles per hour.   
"I don't even wanna know why Kup said we'd have to go in at three a.m. I should be recharging."   
"Cav, quit whining. Our comm might be monitored. With Black Zarak's and Overlord's lackies puttering around on Terra, Primus know who might be listening."   
"Gotcha, bigbot," Cavalier noted, and shut her communicator off.   
A few minutes later, the black car stopped, leaving Cavalier to zoom a half a block before noticing. "Sheesh," she muttered aloud, "see what happens when you put on radio silence?"   
"Cav, be quiet, ok?"   
"Fine."   
It was the place Kup had told them about. Run down, dingy, condemned. Seemed like a brilliant place for a Decepticon stoolie to hide out, especially considering that Black Zarak and Overlord were now in command. Zarak had hunted down the two remaining Seeker brothers and had them imprisoned and tortured, converting them to mindless attack drones. It seemed these days, the days of Victory Lio and Star Saber and whatever they were calling themselves when combined, every bot had become a Headmaster or a Pretender or a Brainmaster. The Decepticon Breastforce-- Cav always giggled at the mention of the Breastforcers-- were the toughest Decepticon team yet, striking fear into every Autobot not silly enough to mock their name, striking death and dismemberment into those that did.   
Strange days, these were. Days that Artemis Prime found exhilerating.   
She transformed, placing her hand on Cavalier's shoulder to silence her again. "Just keep your vocoder in the off position, Cav. He's probably leading us into a trap."   
"Kup?"   
"No... the informant." Artemis reached for the handle of the large garage door and hauled on it, effortlessly coiling it upward and allowing herself and her companion entrance.   
"Welcome," a voice called from the cavernous garage the two found themselves in. "Close that door."   
Artemis complied, and trundled the gate down again, shrouding herself and Cavalier in blackness. Half a klick passed before a pale green light emerged from the floorboard beneath them, as if they were above another room. "Go down the stairs."   
Cavalier looked around the dim room, then scoffed. "What stairs?"   
Then there were stairs, starting at floor level and leading downward. Large enough for two sportscars to track down, these were obviously built by the structure's Cybertronian inhabitants. Certainly not of human design, that was for sure, Artemis thought.   
"Ok," Prime ordered. "Our turn to give the commands. Show yourself."   
"Can't just yet," responded their host. "Don't worry, you'll get what's coming to you. Kup said you'd be a little rash in your actions. Remember something, Artemis Prime: you're not in control for once. Strap in and enjoy the ride."   
Cavalier went down the stairs first, weapon drawn, followed by Artemis in the same position. "Better play along," she muttered.   
"Best holster your arms, girls," the voice ordered again. "My other guests aren't in the mood to kill you."   
Again, knowing how hopelessly outnumbered they probably were, Cavalier and Artemis did as they were ordered to, replacing their weapons into their respective subspace hutches. Cavalier snorted. "Oh, that's just Arty," Cav chuckled, aping the accent of her friend from back home, Britz. "She's 'armless."   
"Be quiet, Cavalier," Artemis ordered for the fifteenth time that day. "We're here, we're unarmed, now it's time for you to fulfill your half of the agreement."   
"Fine, fine," the disembodied host chuckled. The undulating green light faded into darkness, then undulated back into a line of harsh beams. Beneath the furthest one stood a form Artemis would have rather not seen.   
"Long time no see, Arty," he chuckled, the light shimmering on his green and yellow armor. "Have a seat."   
He waved his hand and two chairs emerged from the floor directly behind the two Autobots. "Please... no animosity. We're all just doing our jobs. As a show of good faith, I've installed psionic dampers in the room-- especially active around your positions, Arty. Hi Cav." The Seeker winked.   
Cavalier waved meekly at Parseltongue-- ten years prior, they'd wrangled, but nothing severe. Little property damage. A bit of emotional turmoil, but she'd grown past it.   
"Kup sent you to me because, in the past, I've had a few choice words against Deszaras. Overlord, too... Never could figure why anyone would want to depose Galvatron."   
Artemis could have given him millions of reasons: one for each life taken by that madman, but she mentally declined. This situation called for a little more tact than usual.   
"Anyway, about three years ago, the moment Deszaras took over the Decepticons, I went into hiding with a few of my more loyal cohorts, and we started sort of a Decepticon counterculture. As loathe as I am to admit it, much of our new philosophy is Autobot in nature, but it's all for the Decepticon cause. You should understand that, huh, Arty?"   
Artemis smiled-- sincerely. This sounded comfortingly familiar.   
"I suppose you could say I've built up a small army."   
Artemis stopped him. "What do you want from us?"   
"I'm asking for weapons. In return, technical specifications for Earthbound Decepticon installations."   
"I'd have to discuss it with Star Saber..."   
Artemis almost cringed at the mention of that overbearing jerk, but she held her tongue.   
"There's not time," Parseltongue persisted, clenching his hands into fists. "And when have you EVER run your plans by the Prime in charge?"   
Artemis smirked. "Thought you'd turned off your psionics," she snorted. Parseltongue grinned in return.   
"So..." Parseltongue started.   
"So I'll try and get you what you need. It'll take a week at least. Sneaking weapons out of the armory-- especially past Raiden and Vic Leo-- is gonna be tough, plus I'd have to come up with an excuse to get to New York from Autobase..."   
"Arty, I could kiss you if I didn't hate your very spark!" Parseltongue laughed.   
"Best not try... Screamer's watching you." Artemis pointed her fingers at her optics, then back at Parseltongue.   
"Heh... it's good to know he still cares."   
Artemis stood, followed timidly by Cavalier, and, keeping her optics transfixed on Parseltongue the entire time, made her way back to the staircase, vanishing into the above room. The passageway sealed behind them, leaving Parseltongue alone.   
"Here but for the grace of Primus," he muttered, sitting at a control panel and gazing at the display. "I wish I knew whose side was the right one."   
  
Artemis was fast in her return to the Autobot outpost. Kup sat, a glimmer in his tired, ancient optics, knowing full well where his prize pupil and good friend had been.   
"How did it go?" he croaked as Artemis entered the command center. The lights were dimmed, Kup's head was bowed. He seemed to be either praying, or sleeping. Artemis grinned mischievously in the wan light, then answered, halfway joking, the other half dead serious about ripping out Kup's core processor one diode at a time.   
"You dirty old man!" she scowled. "You KNOW how I feel about him."   
"Me too, Kup!" Cavalier barked from the check-in console. "He's vaped more of my friends then I can count on one hand."   
"Necessary evil if we want the information he's offering. Deszaras isn't exactly on the same level as the Stunticons-- hell, not even Cyclonus and Galvy. He's the worst they've got."   
Artemis nodded. "I remember him as a punk kid," she snorted. Kup nodded in reply. "Rose through the ranks pretty damn quick."   
"Quicker than you'd think. He was behind the scenes at Decepticon HQ while Black Zarak had his little reign of terror, according to our sources. He's bad news. If he gets control of some of Cybertron's more valuable assets, it's bye-bye Autobots."   
Cavalier whined from her workstation. "Could you can the doomsaying, you two? I paid good network time to Hax and Krax for these codes, and your declaring the downfall of Autobot civilization isn't helping."   
"Cavalier, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, I don't want you hanging around those glitch blasted punk kids," Kup chided sternly.   
"Whatever you say, Grampa," Cavalier mocked. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, and you two should know that more than anyone."   
Artemis was unfazed by Cavalier's logic, and Kup was even more irritated.   
"What kind of codes, anyway?" Artemis inquired after a moment's glaring match.   
"Raiden's passcodes. Security dispensation from the Quartermaster's Office."   
Artemis smiled. "At least they know their way around a slicer's manual," she chuckled. "Patch me those codes, I'll go claim the material in a few moments."   
  
Raiden, the Autobot quartermaster, also happened to be a Brainmaster, binary bound to a hefty Scotsman named Duncan. "What ye be needin', lass?" Raiden asked, the brogue thick in the otherwise Samurai-styled bot's voice.   
"Just this," Artemis replied authoritatively, handing Raiden the pad with her clearance on it.   
"Target practice for the bairns?" he chuckled. "G'head, I'll check ye out when ye'r done."   
Artemis complied, pulling a hover-pallet behind her as she loaded it with various powerpacks, energon ammunition, and weapons ranging from beam-bladed melee combat items, to rocket launchers. Within ten minutes, Artemis had filled the pallet high with the materiel and brought it back to Raiden's desk.   
"That all for ye?" he chortled, looking at Artemis's load.   
"That's it," she smiled, a bit nervous, but no more than normal-- this was something she had done before, apparently.   
"Just sign here, and authorize there. This is going to the defense force's account, ne?"   
"Right," she responded, pressing her thumb's digital imprinter onto the pad.   
"That's it, have a nice day."   
  
Artemis swayed a little as the breeze buffeted the rooftop. Residence Block D was like the other Res blocks: Spartan, cubical, and matte silver with a single gold stripe near the roof. The starlight black and night-watch blue femme loved these buildings: they reminded her of the kind of thing she remembered as a much younger soldier among the Decepticons-- none of the cushiness the Autobots indulged in, none of the amenities, all of the thrill of being a soldier, fighting for a cause, and being packed like petrosardines into a galvanized tin can.   
"Hey Big Bot, what's the happs?" Cavalier's chipper voice called from the staircase.   
"I'm thinking."   
"Oh," the black and white femme responded. "Need some company?"   
"No," Prime replied coldly, her knees folded against her chest, arms wrapped around them, her entire body engaged in rapt contemplation. "Just some quiet."   
"Ok. Kup wanted me to tell you there's a comm from our mysterious benefactor... whenever you're ready."   
"Understood," Artemis replied, and waved Cav back down the stairs.   
Mysterious benefactor. That word-- and its connotation-- rung sourly in Artemis's mind. Primus, she hated thinking about it, but like every bad memory, ghosts always haunted the familiar. Parseltongue, she recalled, had been little more than a brainless marauder. But something about him, before Megatron, she wagered, had attracted her so much. And that's why it was so hard to truly despise him.   
He'd done such horrible things, committed terrible atrocities-- Nekhrid Seven foremost among them in her mind-- but they were in the name of the Decepticons. At Nekhrid Seven, sixty Stratabots-- valiant knights of Cybertron, honorable warriors all, Autobot or not-- had been vaporized in an extremely unfair test of might on Parseltongue's behalf. Their squad captain-- a Prime that Artemis barely knew, yet respected all the same-- had been captured, tortured by Parseltongue to the point where he lost the ability to speak for three whole years. There was no way in the Pit she could forgive him that.   
Then there was what he'd done to Cavalier. That was something she'd rather not even consider at this point in time-- the wounds were still too fresh. Cavalier dealt with it gracefully, which surprised Artemis. She shook her head at the possible psychological anguish Cavalier hid under her faceplate. No chance for a reprieve there, either. She'd have to deal with the past, and move on. Not bloody likely. 


	2. 

Year of the Tiger

Author's note: All characters are copyright their respective creators. I do not own Transformers and I am not affiliated with Hasbro or Takara, Mainframe or Alliance, nor should any affiliation be inferred, implied or assumed. Enjoy the fic. Historian's note: "Indeterminate Timeframe" events occur shortly after when "Master Blaster" and "Crossing the Rubicon" would have occured.   
  


**Year Of The Tiger: Being Part The Third of the Zodiac Arc   
Chapter Two**

  


****Earth, Indeterminate Timeframe**   
"Thirty cycles until he can fire again," Copperhead noted, the blast hole smoking in the mountainside nearby. "I timed it."   
They'd been trying to get into the immense craft for the last two megacycles with absolutely no luck, save draining the power core when Starscream attempted to fire. "Now's our chance," Copper barked, and Tyrannix leapt several meters higher.   
"STEEL... DRAGON... FIRE!" A white hot bolt erupted from Tyrannix's throat, ripping through the oddly-textured, remotely metallic hull. "Hold on tight, little snake," the dragon roared, tacking on extra speed, blasting through the shrinking hull breach.   
"Something about this place gives me the willies," Copperhead noted as the two regained their composure. "Sure as heck isn't Cybertronian, and it's obviously not built by the protohumans."   
Tyrannix growled deeply. "It's Vok. I overheard Colonel Silvermane talking about them with Primal one night, in hushed tones... they're responsible for the Standing Stones and the Floating Island, and Optimus knows something about them we don't."   
Copperhead nodded. "He always does... now can't you see why it took me so long to change my command codes? Being a Maximal doesn't bother me, but sometimes... being under his command..."   
"Say no more, snakey," Tyrannix said as he halted. "The walls have ears."   
It wasn't as if there were auditory sensors lining the walls-- which, knowing Starscream's sometimes paranoia, there probably were-- but Tyrannix saw, in fact, small bumps in the shape of some mal-formed ear, lining the wall.   
"Well that's disturbing," Tyrannix half-chuckled.   
"Must be part of the kid's mind... some of this place looks like it was designed by a five year old." Copperhead looked around a corner, and seeing no sign of an enemy, changed course. "Something tells me that since this thing's shaped like a head, Starscream's in the brain."   
Tyrannix nodded, and followed.   
  
Meanwhile, planetside, Pantera fumed. "Primal, get me up there right now," she ordered. "As a Maximal elder, I command it."   
"I can't fulfill that request, and you know it," Primal responded. "Quit asking."   
"I wasn't asking," she said with military crispness. "I was commanding."   
"And a lovely commanding tone you have," Primal rebutted, still steadfast in his refusal.   
"Fine!" she roared, "I'll find another flier to get me up there."   
"Airazor's M.I.A., and Tyrannix has already left with Copperhead. We need you groundside," he ordered, indicating what remained of the Axalon's forward hull, now the Maximal control center, "just in case the Predacons act rashly in this chaos."   
She continued to demur, and Primal continued to scold her. Finally, after what seemed like a decacycle of argument, Pantera relented. "I'll be on the scanners," she snarled, stalking to another station. Primal, on the other hand, stepped outside.   
Even buried among the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, Optimus could still get a good glimpse of "Metalhunter," the... device... Starscream had acquired. It hung, almost motionless, in the sky, not 500 meters above the planet's surface. It had formed itself into a grim visage, a gaunt representation of a face somewhere between Starscream's and Skyfire's. It only made any sign of activity when it opened fire-- seemingly at random, for Optimus couldn't see Copperhead and Tyrannix from the base.   
"Every attempt at communication," Optimus lamented, "every attempt to get Starscream's ATTENTION has been for naught." He slammed his fist against the wall so hard, it left a crack. "What will we do?"   
  
"Whatever shall I do?" Starscream cackled in a mocked dirge, his body strapped to the floating throne of power. "Two puny Maximals have invaded my space... I am outnumbered and outmanned. Now would be a perfect time to activate this."   
He held up a large chunk of metal, what had at one time been a segment of a disk, and examined it. "Perhaps there lies here some information to my advantage... like how to deal with the two corpses at my feet."   
The prone forms of Tigatron and Airazor, hands still locked together, lay on a slab nearby. A blue casing of energon surrounded them, as if imprisoning them.   
Or preserving them.   
As Starscream gave his soliloquy, the self-tribute to his own power and hubris, the sounds of Tyrannix echoed through the walls. "Oh, it appears the dragon has made his way into the sanctum sanctorum... it should be fun to play with him."   
The gold dragon had wrecked several layers of the ship's hull, even to the extent where the self-repair circuits had gone offline. Thrashing his way through Metalhunter, Tyrannix and Copperhead had finally made their way to the quarry.   
"Free them!" the dragon roared. "Let my comrades go!" He punctuated the orders with gouts of silvery-gold flame from each nostril.   
"I think... not," Starscream responded, his demanor pugnacious. "You've broken into my property, and I'm not pleased." Without another word, he jammed the shard of brass into the side of his chair, causing the entire room to shudder under the power of that alien artifact. "Now look what you've made me do!" he whined like a child. "I've broken my fabulous toy!"   
The control chamber bucked beneath Tyrannix's and Copperhead's feet, sending the latter sprawling and skidding across the deckplates, ultimately slamming into the base of the slab where Tigatron and Airazor lay. From Starscream's position, in his waning consciousness, Copperhead could make out a beam, emanating from the base of the floating chair on which Starscream sat.   
"Ah, Vok technology," he crooned, though Copper couldn't make out the maniac's expression. "One must love the potential it presents... for instance..."   
Copper felt the slab lowering, as the field surrounding Tigatron and Airazor crackled, coming into contact with Copperhead's lame shoulder. He was barely able to roll out of the way, knowing full well that energy field could probably evaporate him with little trouble. As the slab settled itself back into the floor-- Copperhead wasn't sure it wasn't simply an extension of the floor, considering the twisted carnival of design that marked the ship-- Tigatron's and Airazor's containment bubble began to hover, glowing brighter.   
Copperhead regained his composure and scrambled to his knees, then up to his feet, watching the bubble constrict somewhat.   
Then he saw something that disturbed him to no end: the two sparks of Airazor and Tigatron had been rent from their bodies, and, in the declining space of the force bubble, had huddled next to each other, seemingly for protection. From their sparks, Copperhead could hear an outcry... an urgent demand for succour. But Copperhead was too far away, too weak, to help, and he gazed wordlessly at Starscream's crime.   
The sparks began to meld. It was as if one was melting into the other, and as they merged, Starscream let out a spine-chilling call.   
"Let life be ignited from the death I have caused..." he screamed, his shrill voice echoing above, and probably filtering through the walls outside of the ship, as well. "And let my penance be paid!"   
Penance? Copper wondered. What duty to the gods was Starscream performing, stealing the sparks of two noble warriors, smashing them into a monstrosity...   
The sparks had fused entirely, and, in the much smaller bubble, had moved back into the one form that had so recently been two.   
"Arise..." Starscream ordered to the blob.   
A hand, clawed, and bone-white, reached out from the energy field and grasped the air. A second talon followed, pulling the newly born Transformer from its energon placenta. The Transformer revealed itself ever-so-slowly, sliding free from the sheath piece by piece, joint by joint, until, finally, it stood revealed. A tall, masculine form it was, a stylized white tiger's head rested on its left shoulder, a sparkling green orb-- what Copperhead could only guess was its spark chamber-- on its right. The chest bore, of all things, a crimson Maximal shield, flanked on either side by an eagle's talons. The face was ghastly, with a grimace filled with sharp teeth, and, in the image of its creator, a mirrored green visor covering its eyes. Two immense, green and violet wings spread off its back gracefully, giving this beast a savage yet noble appearance.   
"State your name," Starscream hissed, "my son..."   
"I am Tigerhawk, and I am no son of yours, monster!" he roared. The voice was Tigatron's!   
Starscream's feathers frayed in rage. "You DARE defy me?! Pathetic FOOL!" He burst forth from the throne, sending it clattering to the deckplates below, wings spread, reptilian tail lashing in fury.   
"The foolish one is he who considers the destruction of two lives to ignite the spark of one, a good deed. Your penance to Primus for your misdeeds, Starscream, is banishment."   
Tigerhawk raised both his hands and folded them together in front of him, as if praying. A wordless song he chanted, causing a sparkling blue aura to engulf him. The focus of that aura was at the point where his fingertips touched, where another blue field of energy had begun to grow. He was charging his own body from his spark, Copperhead realized, a feat something that few Cybertronians he'd ever known had been capable of.   
"Take your penance, Starscream," Tigerhawk growled, separating his hands and enlarging the energy charge. "Take it with you to the pit!"   
The blast sizzled through the air, over Copper's head, and slammed into the cockatrice with all the force of a meteor. It sent him, chest smoking, to the mat, with a resounding THUD.   
"You... fool," he hissed, mech fluid streaming from mouth, optics, and chest. "Do you realize what you are doing?"   
Tigerhawk had now reached the fallen Air Commander, and stood above him, his shadow ominous, his hand now crackling with that same blue energy, now in the shape of a double-bladed longsword. "Yes..." Tigerhawk replied simply, then drove the energy blade deep into Starscream's chest.   
Starscream, his spark skewered on this blade that combined pure energon and the power of Tigerhawk's very soul, could only laugh. "If I'm to visit the Pit, you shall join me."   
A bright flash of light, and the craft bucked again, pulling Tyrannix and Copperhead into the air. It was crashing, and there was now nothing to stop it: the spot where Starscream had lay, and where Tigerhawk had driven his sword into the chest of the despot, was empty.   
They're dead? Copper thought aloud. No, not like this...   
The roar of vernier boosters approaching snapped the serpent out of that line of thought. "Going my way?" a voice called into his aural receptor, to which Copperhead turned his head in response.   
"Tyr?" he muttered.   
"It's me," the dragon replied, dipping and barrelling to avoid falling debris. "This place is about to go boom..."   
A blast of dragon's fire, and a wall was opened to them, leading outside.   
"Not a moment to spare..." Tyrannix wheeled about for a better look at the rapidly evaporating Metalhunter starship. "Look..."   
Two forms were descending rapidly from the former craft, but they were dead husks.   
Tigatron's and Airazor's empty shells, Copperhead told himself, immediately ascertaining what Starscream had actually done. "Good Primus!" Copperhead gasped, urging Tyrannix to burst forth to catch the falling bodies. "We have to..."   
Tyrannix was a step ahead of his small paramour, putting on as much speed as he could to reach the falling shells before the impact desecrated them.   
But it was too late, as Tyrannix had been too slow. The two shells fell beneath the treeline. "I tried," the dragon apologized, eyes closing.   
But the Dragon's tears were shed in vain. The rush of engines told Copperhead and Tyrannix that another Transformer was nearby, and the sound of Optimus Primal's voice rose above the treeline, carrying with him the burnt out shells of Tigatron and Airazor. His optics were dim with sadness, his shoulders hunched.   
"I couldn't save them," Tyrannix apologized.   
"Nor could I," Copperhead replied.   
"They're saved," Primal muttered, dropping his altitude. "The Matrix has seen to that."


	3. The Cry

Year of the Tiger

Author's note: All characters are copyright their respective creators. I do not own Transformers and I am not affiliated with Hasbro or Takara, Mainframe or Alliance, nor should any affiliation be inferred, implied or assumed. Enjoy the fic.   
  


**Year Of The Tiger: Being Part The Third of the Zodiac Arc   
Chapter Three**

  


****Earth, 2017**   
The rock skipped six times, then sunk to the bottom.   
A second rock skipped five times, and a third, seven.   
"That's all wrong!" the girl shouted, picking up the flattest stone she could find and hurling it into the lake. One... five... eight, nine, ten... fifteen, sixteen...   
Seventeen skips, and it was gone.   
"Wow!" the little boy exclaimed in response. "Satine, you've gotta show me how to do that!"   
"Ok, Eric," the teenager responded. She stepped to her little brother's side and picked up two rocks, both rounded flat stones that had been smoothed by the lapping waves. She handed one to her brother and kept one for herself, then cocked her arm, showing her brother the correct positioning, and prepared to throw. "It's in the wrist and the elbow. Watch me." With the force of an Olympic discus thrower, the rock was off, whistling through the air and skimming along the calm surface of the water. Twenty stacatto bounces off the lake and it was down. "Try it."   
Eric did, cocking his arm like his sister had told him, and launched it. The rock flew into the trees somewhere, eliciting a few disgruntled squawks from a crow whose sleep had been disturbed.   
"Guess that wasn't it," Eric muttered, that was only met with a disapproving crossing of the arms from his sister.   
"Let's get back to the campsite... sun's almost down."   
During the Quintesson Occupation, sundown meant curfew. Being out after curfew was often deadly. If it wasn't a Quint Prowler, it was a Decepticon squad shaking down humans for spare energy.   
But now that the Quintessons had been driven off, and the EDC had re-established its hold on the planet's defenses, the people were safe. Under the terms of the treaty, signed at the end of the last Cybertronian Civil War, Terra was officially off-limits to Decepticons, but that never stopped some unscrupulous bots from setting up arms depots onworld.   
One of the older arms merchants on Terra had been Parseltongue. Even before the Cybertronian wars awoke on Terra, he'd set up a waypoint to star pirates, marauders, Sirian spacefleets, you name it, Parseltongue traded to them. Terra, a nonaligned and unaware world, had been picked by those opposed to the Intragalactic Trade Commission as sort of a dump, a place to set up shop to avoid tariffs, duties, and the Commission's enforcement. Parseltongue enjoyed that amnesty, and had used Terra as his base of operations for two decades-- as a place to hide from his past. He could hide as long as his past never caught up with him.   
Unfortunately, by 1984, it had. Somehow, and Parseltongue didn't recall the specifics, he'd been aboard the Ark four million years ago, and between then and now, had freed himself from the stasis lock the other Decepticons aboard the Ark had suffered, and returned to Cybertron. In those four million years, he'd built a name, a fortune, and to go with those, a reputation, for himself. With the patronage of his elder mentor, one of the Decepticon chiefs of yore, Parseltongue was allowed to work outside the boundries of Decepticon law. He became an externally licensed arms merchant, as well as one of the 'Cons' chief intelligence operatives.   
Years passed, events transpired, and Parseltongue stitched up the rifts that his past had created, and he returned to his position as proprietor of an interstellar waypoint. He didn't sever his ties to his heritage, however: the slogan, "Decepticons Forever," was still his credo.   
But, as Fate would have it, Deszaras changed it all. The new Decepticon regime had changed Parseltongue's position among the faction entirely, throwing him entirely out of whack. His permits to trade were revoked, he was ordered back to Cybertron for "re-education" and, worst of all, he was stripped of his rank.   
Perhaps not worst of all... Liege Furio was executed shortly after Deszaras gained his new seat. Almost all of the old guard-- Liege Furio, Liege Tempest, Majin Tarosk-- had been proscribed, their holdings seized and their ranks revoked. It infuriated Paseltongue, especially considering he had returned to Cybertron the day Furio was to be put offline. Perhaps by chance, perhaps by the machinations of Deszaras or one of his many lieutenants, the former Air Commander arrived on Cybertron the very cycle the laser shots ripped into Furio's core processor. Learning of his father figure's death second-hand... it was not something any bot, Autobot or Decepticon, should have to face.   
  
He'd been watching them, Eric and Satine Fairborne-Witwicky. He shook his head at their ignorance. So childlike, apathetic to their parents' guilt.   
"It's people like them..." he snarled inwardly, "that made the Decepticons second-rate citizens..." they made his friends, those he considered his family, disappear. He could forgive the Autobots-- it was in their natures to curb the ambition, the natural desire for conquest, of the Decepticons-- but for humans, it was a different beast. There was no programming ingrained into Terrans' brains; nothing told them the Decepticons were inherently evil. In their naivite, they'd believed the first bots they saw. Unfortunately for the Decepticon Cause, those had been the Autobots... a mistake on the Terrans' part that the Decepticons had paid for the last 30 years.   
No more, Parseltongue thought. This particular line of Terrans had given him trouble for almost forty years. First it was that meddling Terran male who'd somehow picked up on his silent radio frequency; he'd dispatched him shortly. Then, during the wars... too many of them to count. Sparkplug, Spike, Daniel, Buster, Carly-- the names were unimportant, really, but he could recall each and every human's name. He could recall each embarassment to the species. Each blight to the Decpticons. Looking at the Terran spawn playing, ignorant of the world's problems, he could feel the rage boiling within him.   
With all the stealth the 20-foot tall Decepticon taskmaster could muster, he followed the two along the treeline, watching them play and gallavant, and he remembered the blight these creatures had posed in the decades before. Their father, and his father before him, and his father before, had scourged the Decepticons at every turn.   
No more, he swore. Never again would this line of humanity live to arest the glory of the Decepticons. He leveled his blaster at the younger child, the boy, but stopped, realizing what good the two Terran spawn could offer. He knew from the Autobot crests sewn onto their playclothes: alternate versions of the normal Autobot sigil, emblazoned with gold piping and a small flourish near the base that served as the mark of a Powermaster. Killing a potentially valuable member of the Autobot Masterforce would put him on the top of the Autobot equivalent of a hitlist. Not a good idea. Then he considered the parents: Daniel Witwicky and Anna Fairborne... EDC members, but officially unaffiliated with Transformers on the whole.   
Killing them might bring down the scorns of the Earth Defense Corps, but it might also bring my cause to light, he considered. The perfect scapegoats; a hero of Cybertron and his consort. Perhaps this would even bring the attention of Deszaras. Perhaps Deszaras would realize how valuable Parseltongue really was--   
Why in the Pit should I have to prove myself to him?! Parseltongue snarled to himself. It is he who has something to prove...   
  
Of all the bots on Cybertron, why did it have to be Artemis? Kup's chin fell onto his hand, a position he'd taken so many times in the past few days, as his mind shifted into "deep thought" mode.   
"Why, lass?" he asked of the air. "Your convictions were so strong so short a time ago, and now..."   
"Now, what, old-timer?" came a feminine voice from the doorway. In his reverie, Kup had ignored the entrance of his old friend.   
"Now you're in bed with the bot you claim to hate most..."   
"You yourself once said we all have to make personal sacrifices for the good of the many. Or maybe that was Mister Spock..." Artemis chuckled, grabbing a chair and sitting across the desk from her blue-grey companion. "When I was but a wee buggy," she chuckled, "you always wanted to make sure I grew into something very fitting. You nearly hit the roof when I formatted myself to a muscle car, but..."   
"But it turned out to fit you better than anything."   
"So, now that I'm a Prime-- now that I have a little more sway among the Autobots-- I'm doing what fits me. I'm taking on the role of peacemaker, but there's no way in the pit I'd give up on being an asskicker, either." Artemis, in the face of adversity, alwas kept that wry sense of humor, that seeming ignorance to death and destruction, Kup noticed.   
"Artemis," he croaked, "there's something I need to tell you..."   
"Old man, if you're about to tell me you're my father, you need a recharge cycle."   
Kup chuckled throatily, but his expression dimmed. "Artemis... this is important. Years back, you'd talk to thin air like it was nothing, but for a time you stopped. Lass, you've started again."   
"Kup... what're you talking about?"   
"Cavalier died almost ten years ago."   
"No she didn't," Artemis chuckled. "That's not funny. Cav... she got hurt really badly, but Zodiac and Firstaid-- they brought her back."   
"No. Artemis, she died on the table. I was there. Hot Rod was there. You were there, lass."   
"Kup, if this is your idea of a joke, it's starting to get on my nerves. I came here for some guidance, old timer and--"   
"Cut the slag, Arty!" Kup shouted, standing at his desk. "If I gotta pull seniority on you, I'll do it. Keep talking to ghosts like this, and Starsaber and Vic Leo are going to be told that you are unfit for your command, and unfit as an Autobot general!"   
"Kup, cut it out." Artemis looked around, then lifted her wrist to her aural processor. "Yeah, Cav?"   
Kup shook his head. "Doorlocks activate," he muttered. "Open comm to Tokyo base-- attention Starsaber." 

***

  
If she hadn't as much esteem as she did, they wouldn't have treated her as well. She was placed in an almost comfortable holding cell, with nearly polite guards posted. Starsaber came by, and relatively genially interrogated her; Firstaid approximately uneventfully examined her. No psychological damage; Firstaid didn't even find signs of post-traumatic stress in her core processor. The picture of mental health. So, that established, they labelled it a disorder of the spark. Incurable and entirely un-treatable with modern medicine, especially in the present wartime situation, but she would be able to function normally.   
"You're free to go," Firstaid told her, opening the forcefield on her holding room. "We're sorry... but Kup was worried. Artemis, I seem to remember you had this same problem a few years ago-- but it was someone else you were talking to."   
"Flyboy. But he did die. Cav didn't... or at least I don't remember it."   
"Your spark may be telling you she didn't. With her 'presence,' similar to the one with Starscream, perhaps your logic circuits are being affected?" Firstaid's optics, deep, healer-blue in color, were taut, almost pained.   
"Maybe," Artemis sighed after a moment. "I'll have to move on. It's the only way."   
Firstaid didn't respond. He knew Artemis somewhat well, he thought, enough, at least, to know when she was right. "Remember: you'll always have us."   
Without warning, she hugged him, her demeanor weakening, her voice trembling, almost on the verge of tears. "Thanks," she sighed. "Astrotrain would have probably run away screaming if I did this..."   
"Well, the Decepticons I've known were never that in-touch with their feelings," Firstaid chuckled. "It's good to have you safe and sound, Artemis."   
"Never thought I'd hear any Autobot other than Kup tell me that."   
"Well... maybe you should have. Psychologically, praise is one of the most valuable tools for mental health. Hearing how important you are, from time to time, can and will do you good. I don't know if I speak for the others-- I know Starsaber feels the same, though he's loathe to admit it-- but you are appreciated. All you did during the Quint occupation..." Now it was Firstaid's turn to get teary-eyed.   
Artemis chuckled and rapped him on the back. "I'm free to go?"   
"Yep."   
"Then I'm buying you a drink." 

***

  
"Arty," Cavalier chirped.   
"You're not here," she muttered.   
"Why'd you let them?"   
"Can't hear you."   
"Stop it, dammit!"   
"Cav..."   
"When I died, you PROMISED not to forget me." Her voice was wavering,tearful. "Don't forget me."   
"I won't," Art muttered. "I haven't... you know that."   
"Then why won't you talk to me?"   
"Talking to thin air isn't considered... proper."   
"The PIT with proper, Bigbot! You NEED me."   
"Like I needed Starscream?!"   
A pause.   
"Yeah." Cavalier chuckled derisively. "If he HADN'T ooga-booga'ed you all those times, you'd've blown Autobot City up. Gotta give flyboy credit."   
"Whatever," Artemis groaned, turning over in the dark.   
"Listen to reason!" Cavalier pleaded.   
"You're not REASON-- you're a GHOST. And I'm not supposed   
to talk to you."   
"The child has a point," another voice croaked.   
"Not you, too," Artemis muttered. "All I need is Christmas future..."   
Cavalier's spirit chuckled; Starscream's was silent. "Cavalier had a destiny to fulfill, as did I. And both of those destinies are related to yours."   
"Don't wanna hear it, flyboy. Can I get some rest?"   
"No rest for the wicked, Arty," Cavalier offered. "Ya gotta listen to us. You NEED us. You also need Parseltongue."   
"Like I need a hole in my head. He needs weaponry, that's it. That should be the LAST time I see him."   
"Not bloody likely," Cavalier spat. "Arty, dammit, you KNOW this is important, but you need to realize how much."   
"AH, SCREW DESTINY!" Artemis shouted, covering her aural receptors with her hands. "Destiny can go jump off a bridge."   
"Destiny, like it or not, Arty," Starscream continued, picking up where Cavalier left off, "drives the universe. You have a place in it, too-- and it may not be pretty, or glamorous, or even eventful, but it is something you must fulfill."   
"Like it or not, you say, I'm going to fulfill it. Quit BADGERING me on it!"   
Cavalier's spark shimmered a bit, casting light onto Artemis's frame. "She gets it, finally!"   
Starscream's mote made a small motion, like a nod, and flitted to the other side of the room. "We're done here."   
"But I wanna stay with Arty!"   
"No, Cavalier. She does not need you."   
"Ever heard of deus ex machina?" Cavalier's spark asked, inaudibly to Artemis.   
"The God in the Machine, if my ancient Terran serves... your point?"   
"I'm good at it." The spark pulsed joyfully. "Arty can use me to sneak up on people. YOU got to do it for her."   
"Your position is not to act; not this time. But the powers that be would not be adverse to..."   
"THANK you Starscream!"   
Artemis heard that. "That's something that should never be uttered in proper conversation," she groaned.   
  
Normally, Parseltongue hated mornings. This was an anomoly. He took an air sample-- what would look, to the untrained eye, much like a deep, invigorating breath-- and smiled. Today he would finally see a return to normality.   
The heavy clunk of his companion's footsteps caught his attention, and the cyberjet turned.   
"Good morning, Blitzwing," he nodded.   
"Quiet. Aurals achin'."   
"Sorry," Parseltongue replied, lowering his output volume. "Some shindig last night. Haven't blown up that many junked cars in eons..."   
"We have boring hobbies," Blitzwing muttered. "I can remember when it was actually fun. Like that first attack on Autobot City, at the end of the wars. I ENJOYED seeing the buildings crumple. Hell, even when Megatron bit the big one, it was in the heat of battle. It was..."   
"Exhilerating?" Parseltongue scoffed.   
"Yeah."   
"I was never one for battle," Parseltongue noted. "I only decided on the form of an assaultcraft for personal reasons. I'm... more of a behind the scenes type of personality."   
"Got that right. Well, I got you to thank for my situation. Ya got me offa Charr."   
"You could have done it without me," Parseltongue demurred. "The Infierne was only in the sector because Galvatron--"   
"Quit arguin' and take some slottin' credit," Blitzwing ordered. "For once in your life, fess up to a good deed... it's not like you get the opportunity for a lot of 'em where you come from."   
Parseltongue's mouth curved upward. "Thanks, Blitz... really don't think it's very Decepticon of you, but it's awfully... human."   
He shuddered visibly at the mention of that species. "Don't mention it."   
"I won't," Parseltongue agreed. "Speaking of humans--"   
"I TOLD you not to mention it," Blitz muttered.   
"--where is Plotz?" Parseltongue snickered.   
"Plotz," Blitzwing started, "should be dead by now, Primus willing..."   
No luck, as the Targetmaster companion trundled into the room. "What's everyone standing around for? You guys got a rendezvous in an hour halfway across the continent and I ain't gonna be responsible for the ASS KICKING the two of you are gonna receive if you don't get your skidplates in gear and jet. I don't care if you're both supersonic jettamajiggers, you've still gotta follow international treaties about personal airspeed regulations and I ain't gonna take the rap for you guys again--"   
Blitzwing growled a warning at Plotz, to no effect, as the binary-bound human continued his rambling.   
"--and THAT'S why the Decepticons got their collective asses handed to them by the Quints and the Autobots both during the wars. Why I hang around with two zero-zeroes like you is beyond me. If my lifesigns weren't being sustained by this suit and your energon transmissions, Ditzwing, I'd be out of here like a Tyderian sunbat running from a rampaging Dinobot on a hot day..."   
"Plotz!" Blitzwing shouted, firing a low-powered warning shot from his cannon to punctuate. "Shut your wordhole or I'll ARCWELD it shut!"   
"Hell, if it weren't for Arseholetongue's bungling, neither of us would be in this mess," the Targetmaster complained, but the words fell on deaf aural sensors. Blitzwing had transformed, finding a safe spot to take off, his thrusters blasting as he soared off.   
"He's just gonna LEAVE me here? I'll show him!" Plotz shouted, jumping into the air and transforming himself, into a gatling gun, repleat with tripod. "FIRE!" he screamed, letting forth a volley of energy bullets at his companion, all of which missed by great margins.   
"For Primus's sake," Parseltongue shouted over the din, "get in my freakin' cockpit!" Parseltongue took one step forward, dropped to the ground, and landed as a Terran fighter jet. "Hop in, meatbag," the Decepticon ordered, to which Plotz replied with a snide remark, but complied.   
In a burning scirocco of engines rushing, the Decepticon fighter was off the ground after his Triplechanger companion.   
  
Pacing around the abandoned storage facility, the solidly built late-model Pontiac was muttering to herself. "If it weren't for ghosts, I probably wouldn't be here... frellin' ghosts..."   
She recalled Starscream, and how he and her overactive dreamlife had lead her to the discovery of a temporary stay in the matter of Unicron's Curse, a plague that could very well have wiped out the entire Transformer species. "Felis Convoy" had told her he was a near ghost, a combination of the figmentive bits of her subconscious and a premoniton as to her future... Now Cavalier, her dead compatriot, one alongside whom she'd fought, one whom she'd barely gotten to know, haunted her. "Deus ex Machina" was how the kid now jokingly referred to herself, something of which Artemis wasn't entirely sure she approved. Deus ex machina was... well, it was not the way she wished to live her life. By old Terran literature standards, the term meant "God in the Machine," and long ago Artemis had sworn that Primus had no hand in her affairs, by His grace or hers. But Cavalier didn't represent, to her, the Light God's meddling, but the meddling of another force: Starscream. She loved him once, that she no longer cringed at admitting, but having him call the dance of her destiny was distasteful, to say the least. The very thought at the moment hurt inside. Knowing that Starscream, who'd tried on more than one occasion to kiss then kill, was now warding one whom she considered her own charge, made her feel sick to her stomach.   
"Credchip for your thoughts, Bigbot," her nebulous voice chirped.   
"Parseltongue isn't late... he's meticulous about that. It bothers me."   
"It bothers you that he's a dead ringer for Flyboy..."   
"Get out of my brain!" Artemis snapped, glaring at no point in general. "He doesn't look a thing--"   
"--like him," Cavalier finished. "Different paintjob, a tiny tweak to the forehead, and missile clusters on his shoulders instead of nullray emitters. Same format... and judging from how Shockwave thrust the two of you together a couple of years back... same Decepticon charm."   
"Shut UP," Artemis rifled again, yelling at the thin air. "Incoming," she noted, checking her sensors. "Blitzy..." A smile cracked her stoic chin, the first in weeks. "Good to see he's still online... and there's a human with them, too."   
In a twinkling, a tan and violet jet rushed overhead and past Artemis's field of vision. Moments later, the grinding of tank treads approached from the direction the plane had disappeared toward. Triplechangers, Artemis chuckled inwardly. So indecisive.   
"Art!" his voice echoed through the alleyway.   
"You're looking well... got an upgrade?"   
"Went..." Blitzwing cringed a moment, then continued. "Targetmaster..."   
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Artemis laughed.   
"You dunno the half of it, sweetcheeks. Every ten seconds I wanna strangle that little--" Another jet's engines cut him off, this time with a slightly higher-pitched engine note, signalling another model of plane. The whine rang in Artemis's ears like another ghost...   
"Parseltongue," she muttered, almost a curse. Almost.   
==Good to see you, too, Arts,== came the telepathic reply. His body was nowhere to be seen, as was Parseltongue's whim at most times, and it most of the time made her uneasy. This time was different. It gave Artemis a strange feeling of comfort: she was back in Brainstorms, downing one Pangalactic Gargleblaster after another, with Ritter and Stormy and... the triplets. And the black sheep...   
"I could say the same," she coughed, trying not to let Parseltongue in on the fact she was actually remotely happy to see him.   
"Hi Cav," Parseltongue greeted under his breath.   
The ghost-spark flitted into Parseltongue's aural sensor and out the other one in response.   
"Buzzing the hapless members of the living community, I see," he chuckled, swatting the nebulous ghost away. Blitzwing and Plotz stared blankly, and shrugged.   
"Hate to break up the partying, but... we've got business to discuss, Artemis." Parseltongue's tone changed swiftly. "Deszaras has just made a really stupid move in scattering troops very thinly. Your Prime might want to know this information: he's moving echelons away from Terra at an alarming rate, like he's been spooked by something."   
A flittering hum told Artemis and Parseltongue what exactly was going on.   
"You little Autobrat," the Seeker chuckled. "What was it?"   
"She made Cybertron Central's sensor arrays pick up Unicron closing in," Artemis replied blandly, as if unamused. Parseltongue and Blitzwing, on the other hand, were floored.   
"The little sprite can DO that?"   
"Apparently," Artemis responded coldly. "Something about reconfiguring electronics... I guess you want payment."   
"But I haven't told you anything you didn't already know, Arty..." She scowled at how Parseltongue ended that sentence: no one, not even Starscream, was allowed to refer to her as such. "How about this? Shockwave's back on the scene."   
"Didn't know THAT now, didja?" Cavalier mocked inside Artemis's mind. "Starscream told me not to tell you."   
Another scowl, and Artemis spoke. "Where's his jurisdiction this time? Beta? Trillin? If he's been given Charr, I can be positive Deszaras is a moron."   
"Nope... he's the prefect on Terra."   
"And you didn't tell me?!" Artemis roared, swatting at the air again.   
"Starscream said it'd ruin your grand destiny, whatever he meant by that..."   
"The little piston..." she mumbled. "Now that's worth a couple megatons of ammo."   
Blitzwing and Plotz, who had been bickering in the shadows, pricked up at this new information. "Ammo, you say, Art?" Blitz responded, like a kid who's heard the word 'toy' in conversation.   
"Yeah... snuck it out of Autobase... surreptitiously, I might add. Cav did a bit of spirit dancing through the procurement computers and got me what I needed." Artemis had to admit: coming to the realization that Cavalier truly was gone had been helpful... she felt like a piece had fallen back into place after being yanked out for a decade. "Anyway... it's yours. Behind the big door there. I have to scram-- Starsaber gets antsy when I don't show up for briefings." With that, Artemis dropped to her hands and knees, shifting into a starlight black and shock blue 2008 Pontiac Rageous-- first year they were mass produced, Arty was proud of bragging-- and zipped off.   
"Finally..." Parseltongue muttered, "we're going to take back what's ours."   
  
The two humans he wanted to kill didn't seem to matter to Parseltongue at this moment. It was only the handsome gleam on the barrels of his armament. Autobot castoffs, clearly, but still capable of blowing quite a hole in Deszaras's defensive front. And Parseltongue knew just the 'bot whose strings he could yank to get the job done.   
The Kiribati Prefecture had been vacant for almost 30 years, after Parseltongue and his gang-- Wormtongue, Scylla, Kierce and the rest-- had abandoned it following the debacle with Artemis. But once Deszaras changed his focus away from Earth and assigned one of the lower echelon (to him, at least-- true 'Cons considered Shockwave some of the glue that bound the old regime to the new) to the now-backwater former nexus of Autobot vs. Decepticon quarrel, it gave the Reclamation movement Parseltongue headed the opportunity to sidle into the actual physical presence of Deszaras, and through his lackeys, slit the Decepticon's fluid line.   
  
In his monotone, he merely gave commands. When his voice pitched, he was mad, and when Shockwave was mad, he meant business. A shot from his left-hand blaster cracked over Blast Alsatian's headcrest, barely missing singing his armor-plated skull.   
"A bit of restraint, commander!" Alsatian suggested, ducking another shot.   
"Restraint is for the weak and the addled," the violet cannon fumed, punching the control panel before him. The single LED he called an optic flickered in irritation. "Does nothing in this Primus-forsaken hovel function properly?" His voice had returned to its unwavering stoicism.   
"Have patience, commander," Alsatian chided, as if scolding a small child. There was nothing he despised more than whining, especially when coming from someone over whom he held rank and seniority, and most indubitably when that bot was in a position of authority. "The new power couplings have yet to be installed, and I must remind you that most of this materiel has stood derelict for decades. It's amazing that there's even a power feed."   
Shockwave shrugged his shoulders in defeat. "I shall be in my quarters. Interrupt me and be disintegrated," he ordered blankly, though the lack of inflection still carried with it the impetus of a laser shot to the spark.   
  
Kiribas was the first place on Terra to see daylight each day. Thus, it was a perfect staging ground for a Decepticon watchtower. Back in the days of Megtron the Primeslayer, and his lieutenants, Kiribas was one of the many depots for energon production. After the first Megatron's demise and the seemingly meteoric rise of his successor Galvatron (a good majority of Decepticons never connected Megatron to Unicron, and through Unicron, Galvatron). After that, Zarak, Overlord, and now Deszaras, had pretty much ignored that particular station, in preference to more strategic locales. But Kiribas had the jump on every other place on the globe: a strange amount of temporal distortion was localized just beneath the power core in the Decepticon bunker. Deszaras had gotten wind of this temporal distortion, so he sent Shockwave, one of the only Old Guard Decepticons he believed he could trust, to oversee the excavation. He knew, however, that Shockwave had repeatedly attempted to overthrow Megatron in the past, and Blast Alsatian, a Breastforcer whom many considered to be the one Deszaras groomed for second-in-command of all Decepticons, was also assigned as Subprefect. At his assignment, harsh words were flung between the two Decepticon generals, until even the rank of Subprefect was stripped of Alsatian, and the newly declared Breastforce Undersergeant left on his transport to Terra.   
  
"Until I can provide power to the station itself," Shockwave reported, "the excavation will be delayed. I apologize, my liege, but this is how it is." The blinking fiberoptic light on Shockwave's blank faceplate flickered off.   
"It is our opinion, Shockwave, that perhaps you were not the correct designate for the position," the comm-screen responded.   
"That is untrue," the unfluttering Decepticon city commander retorted. "The installation to which I was assigned has a skeleton crew. It is also possessed, I might add, of little in the way of servicable equipment, the reason there being that every individual power coupling and plasma manifold has fallen into disrepair in its thirty solar revolutions of disuse. I require a large contingent of Constructicons for the restoration of the power systems. I also require Combatrons for defense, as the security systems on this island are mediocre at best. Allot me these necessities, Lord Deszaras, because you wish to have your prize as swiftly as possible."   
"Your words come to move us, Shockwave," Deszaras admitted. "Very well... a troop transport is being dispatched to your location forthwith."   
"I thank you, Liege. Kiribas base out."   
  
"Coercing him will not be easy," Swindle complained. "Shockwave was always one of the hardest nuts to crack."   
"Yes," Parseltongue admitted, "but you must recall something: his ambition to bring down the leader-- be it Megatron, Galvatron, or in our case, Deszaras-- will always be the key to his manipulation." A sneer crossed his lips. "Even if we have to do it at gunpoint, we'll 'convince' Shockwave one way or another."   
Onslaught was next to speak. "And I s'pose you'll be headin' up the mission."   
"Actually," Parseltongue replied, twirling to look eye-to-eye with the guntank, "you and the Combaticons will be. Your covert ops are really coming in handy. You've been assigned to Kiribas as security guards. I find it hilarious, to be honest. Bruticus couldn't secure a tin can if it were soldered to his skidplate."   
"Are you implying the Combaticons are ineffective?!" Vortex blasted. "You watch your vocoder around--"   
Vortex was immediately silenced by a quick shot to his core processor from the angered Parseltongue. "Enough squabbling, you five. I suggest you get going. Astrotrain," he beckoned into his comm.   
The gravelly voice of the Decepticon transport answered. "Ready as I'll ever be," he answered pre-emptively. "Dun need to be a psychic to know what you were gonna ask. I'll be there in two ticks."   
Sure enough, within a second and a half, the gunmetal and Decepticon purple shuttle dropped out of the sky, rapidly shifting into robot mode, and crushing the concrete beneath his feet in an impressive landing.   
"I don't why you even need me. Blastoff there can hold the entire Combaticon troupe and then some," the Triplechanger complained, to deaf aurals.   
"Pile in boys; Astrotrain'll have you on Kiribas in no time. Trainy, get down with yer bad self," chuckled the Seeker, waving Astrotrain into position.   
"Oh, stop with the horrid Terran humor!" the train balked, chugging his wheels and bursting forward. "I'll see you in a few days, Seeker... if they haven't blown a hole in me." By now, Primus be praised, Astrotrain's voice was fading as he grew more and more distant. Soon enough, the train sprouted wings, its cabin shifted to a nosecone, and the space shuttle blasted into the stratosphere.   
  
Something didn't sit quite right with Shockwave about the Combaticons. They had a somewhat stilted manner when around him that he'd never seen from them in the ages they'd served the Cause. Unusual speech patterns or not, he still despised this segment of the Combaticons. Anything from that cretinous Starscream's mind automatically placed itself low on Shockwave's list of favorite things, usually right under Scraplets and the Hate Plague. Onslaught was his usual boorish self; Swindle, naturally, was appraising everything in the place, muttering about how good a price he could get for it or how he could have arranged its purchase for a quarter what was paid. Vortex, Blastoff and Brawl could only complain about the lack of civilized appointments-- of the five Combaticons, Shockwave sympathized with them the most; he himself had proclaimed the horrifically undersuited bunker substandard. Sympathy may have been too strong a word to describe this mild sense of agreement he felt, but he banished the thought to the rear of his central processor, preferring to lend his mind to the tasks at hand.   
  
"All that we've found is a the fossilized imprints of a few feathers," one of the science officers-- Shockwave rarely bothered to even ask their names anymore-- noted. "But the strange part about these specimens, aside from their immense chronometric displacement, is that they're not organic."   
Shockwave's optic flashed. "Not organic," he repeated. "How so? Feathers are an inherent physical trait to the this planet's avians." He scrolled over the image of the fossil. "This imprint could not have been left by synthetics of the timeframe."   
"Indeed it couldn't," the tech responded. "That is where the chronometric displacement comes in. Apparently, this feather-- or the creature to which this feather belonged-- was forced back in time to roughly seven hundred thousand terrestrial years ago."   
"Interesting," Shockwave mused. "How is this concerned with the well-being of the Decepticons?"   
"It's Decepticon make," was the answer. Shockwave's monoptic flickered. "The feather bears the distinct trademark of Decepticon designers. But the materials apparent-- synthetic residues we picked up on micron trace-- are nothing like any Decepticon polymers or alloys."   
Shockwave lowered his head in thought, a motion unnecessary, but one he'd picked up out of habit, watching the fleshlings of this planet act similarly. It had begun as a mocking gesture, but had now evolved into routine. "This means that the fossil is from a future generation of Decepticons."   
"That was our hypothesis as well," replied the technician. "Should we notify lord Deszaras?"   
"I shall do so immediately."   
Shockwave swiftly turned, mounted the stairs leading into the pit, and swung out the sliding doors, with almost a gleeful spring in his step.   
  
"You have pleased us," the low tone of Deszaras's voice chuckled. "You may return to Cybertron to celebrate with us, on the next shuttle. You, my good bot and trusted servant, have earned a promotion."   
The image of Deszaras dissolved into the ornate Decepticon crest he used as his sigil, and Shockwave grinned to himself. "What I have always deserved..."   
  
Parseltongue looked at the telescreen and his jaw dropped. "So he's come home to roost, huh?"   
"Looks like it," Swindle replied. "How do you know this guy, anyway?"   
"My little secret," Parseltongue chided. "Remember, Greejeeby, curiosity vaped the cat."   
"But ambition vaped Megatron countless times. The encrypt codes are about to time out, so the Combaticons must run. We'll be sending you a message tomorrow, probably around sunrise. Be ready for it. Swindle out."   
Parseltongue flipped the screen off and crossed his arms thoughtfully. Skyfire... slag, why not just call a duck a duck and use his real name?... Finally found the little ball of feathers. Poor Starscream-- Parseltongue pretty much knew when his brother's spark would fall back in time, inhabit Waspinator's head, leave, warp back forward, get a new body, and warp back again to seven hundred millennia earlier, but the Air Commander didn't. The irony was delicious. And Starscream had no clue part of his own corpse had been discovered on a tiny Pacific island. It was better this way, he thought: as the only Decepticon with real knowledge of the events that transpired during the Beast Wars, and one of the few Decepticons with this high a level of mental security, the information regarding the past, the future, and its effect on the present, was safe with him.   
But it sure would be fun to hold this over Starscream's head. Parseltongue could imagine snidely confiding in the spark that he knew something the other didn't, that he, as a snake, would be responsible for his brother's third death in the future and the past.   
  
****Earth, Indeterminate Timeframe**   
"You insufferable pain in the gas-tank!" Copper shouted at Silverbolt.   
"Residue from beneath the tread of the lowest waste removal droids!"   
"Good one, wings!" he shouted gleefully. "Your turn, big dragon," he yelled to his steed.   
"I'm no good with insults," Tyrannix replied, flapping his wings and jetting forward. "But anything's worth a try... Silver... err... Silverdolt!" he called, obviously quite proud of himself.   
"We'll work on that!" the snake bellowed sarcastically, only to be answered with a thwap on the head by Tyrannix's tail. "Hey! Whadja do that for?!"   
"Do what? Must've... slipped!" the dragon roared.   
Ark Mountain loomed before them, tall, capped with snow, home to all of them. Happy times awaited upon their return. The warmth of a fire to drive away the cold in their organic parts, the sounds of Inuarai, Blancwulf, and Cheetor, cheerfully razzing each other or playing laser tag in the Ark's corridors.   
"There's an old Terran holiday that I couldn't stand as a Decepticon," Copperhead called over the wind, just as Tyrannix and Silverbolt made their landings. "It was called Christmas, and from what I gleaned from the Terrans, it used to be a time of great celebration for spiritual purposes. Kind of like the Primus Nights back home..." Silverbolt, of course, had never been to the Primus Nights, the poor son of a glitch. "But without half the edge or a third the partying." Copperhead dismounted the immense golden dragon, allowing the beast to transform into his robotic mode. Copperhead wrapped his arms around the giant's waist and squeezed, pressing his cheek into the cold metallic stomach of his love. "But at Christmas they'd give each other trinkets, tokens of affection... I seem to remember there were a lot of toys based on our kind, at one point in time, but they died off in the early 1990s... don't ask me why. I always felt slighted that there was a Starscream action figure but none of me." Copper released Tyrannix's midsection and shrugged. "Ah well... at least I knew I had more charisma."   
Tyrannix and Silverbolt laughed at this, the former leading the latter and Copper himself back inside.   
"Welcome back, you three," Rhinox greeted cheerfuly. "Find anything worth salvaging?"   
"Well... all that's left of my Starhopper is floating in orbit at the moment. The Ravager and the Axalon were complete wrecks, too-- we got what we could when we salvaged the first time. But Pantera... Hey Tera!" he called, holding up a small black box.   
The curretly salmon-colored femme exited a door nearby, as if by chance, and answered. "You found it?!" she exclaimed, striding over determinedly. "I can't believe it... where was it?"   
"Oona had it. She was using it to crush shellfish... what exactly is it?" Copper queried, curious as Silverbolt and Tyrannix.   
"It's my holobank. It's pretty much all my memories from the last couple of hundred millennia..." She clutched it to her chest and rushed into the great room, where Blackarachnia, Cheetor and Inuarai were huddled around a viewscreen.   
"Guys, come take a look. Nari, free up a power outlet. Cheetor, go find the others," Pantera ordered. "This is something I'd like to share."   
Copperhead found that particularly unusual. Sharing was something she generally stayed away from-- perhaps she was finally allowing her exterior to soften. "Home movies?" he asked.   
"In a sense... old logs, some vids, holostills... I think there are photos of you in here, Parseltongue."   
His eyes widened. "Surprised you remembered the name, mamacat," he chuckled. "Blitzy, too?"   
Artemis chuckled and her whole seemed to darken a hue, as if blushing. "Yeah... Plotz and Cav, as well. Not sure, but..." She hooked the power cable in and pressed a few buttons on it. "Yup." A hologram blinked on, showing a sturdily built blue-and-white Autobot. "Magnus. See that black femme who's barely knee-high to him?" She pointed at the little black girl in the image. By now, Arachnia, Inuarai, Blancwulf, Cheetor and Rattrap had gathered around.   
"Looks kinda like you, mamacat," Wulfie noted.   
"Gee, ya think? That's me all right." Her voice dropped a bit. "Artemis and Magnus... I think he had a crush on me for a few hundred years." She advanced the photo. By now, Primal had joined the group, silently (as in wordlessly, there was nothing quiet about a 20-foot monkey walking around) joining in the display.   
Another image popped up, of that same black femme with her arm around a much taller red and yellow bot, seemingly designated a Prime. "That's Felis Convoy." Both bots looked very happy in the shot. Pantera, on the other hand, was solemn. "Good kid... I wonder what he'd be up to right now." The image advanced again, this time to Artemis mock-strangling a green and yellow Seeker-jet.   
"Ok, next photo," Copperhead joked, optics darting left to right. "Nothing to see there..."   
"Is that..." Nari began. "You?" she smirked.   
"Noooo... I never had that bad of a fashion sense... What're you, nuts?" he snickered, halfway joking, half embarassed. "Primus help me, was I ever that tall?"   
"Snakey... you were a Seeker. There was no height differential between the lot of you," Tyrannix joked, rubbing his snake's shoulder. "Besides... you were handsome... for a Decepticon."   
Copperhead punched the dragon in the shoulder playfully. "C'mon, mamacat, next picture."   
A cityscape appeared, a canyon of crystalline towers, glimmering roads, and hundreds of other Cybertronians: Autobot and Decepticon alike, all old make. The image began moving shakily.   
--Crystal City Military Proving Grounds,-- came the high-pitched female voice. --A long way from Iacon here, but it was worth the drive.--   
Another voice interjected. --Arty, point the camera at me, how bout?--   
The image swung over to a purple and tan Decepticon male. --Blitzy, the action's in the air.--   
A third voice, this one seemingly from some omnipresent loudspeaker, boomed. --Welcome one and all to the fortieth annual Cybertron Professional Display!--   
--Here he comes!-- Arty shouted, swinging the camera up skyward again, focusing it on one of the familiar Decepticon-designed pyramid jets. --He's the red and white one. Flying in formation with the black and purple and the blue and white... see them? They're the best...-- The camera began zooming in on the red and white jet in particular. --And his bio says he's just a software engineer... he could be so much more. Look at how he flies!--   
Blitzwing's voice interrupted and the camera shook a bit. --And here we have a rare specimine: Artemis swoonimus, one of Cybertron's funniest...-- The camera focused in on a dark blue and gloss black female.   
"Aww!" Inuarai and Blancwulf joked in unison.   
"Hey... She looks like you, Wulfie!" Cheetor pointed. "All bright eyed and charged up... and just like you, she's in love with a suave, sophisticated, debonaire Transformer."   
"No, that's not like me at all," Blancwulf quipped, mock-deadpan.   
The video blurred, and the holobox deactivated. "Show's over, folks," Pantera announced. "Hope you enjoyed poking fun at my fondest memories of all time."   
"Slot yeah!" Copperhead laughed. "When can we do it again?"   
"To the pit with all of you!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in false dismay.   
"I thought your camera work was good, if it's any consolation," Silverbolt offered as the rest of the group disbanded, seeking their own amusements. "Or are you kidding..."   
"I'm not kidding," she muttered at him, with a glare and a snarl.   
"Oh... I apologize, m'lady... Didn't mean to offend--"   
"Of course I was kidding, you knockoff." She chucked his shoulder lightly, with her fist. Tera's optics shifted colors a bit, from a palid, almost inconsequential blue to rich royal purple, an indication that her mood was switching from docile to affectionate. "Silverbolt..." she began.   
"Yes, elder?" he coaxed.   
"You've been a good friend... if I'm to stay on this world till I die, I wouldn't complain if you were here."   
"I'm flattered," Silverbolt blushed. "It has been a pleasure serving alongside you, as well, elder Pantera."   
"Still so formal." She rubbed his shoulder. "How are things with the spider?"   
"Tense. Lately, she has been so... distant."   
"The changeover had that effect on a lot of us. Talk to her... tell her how you feel."   
What Primal had said about Pantera's emotions was true: she'd become a wild card of sorts, and at times Silverbolt felt as at ease around her as any Maximal. Other times, when she had the bloodlust in her eyes-- they glowed a violent, almost molten shade of red-- Silverbolt truly feared her. Fortunately for the Fuzor, this was one of those moments where she was not only lucid, but genuinely friendly. He only hoped nothing would come to trigger her "Decepticon" side, as Rattrap had jokingly dubbed it.   
Heeding her advice, he padded off, wings folded behind him.   
Pantera was now alone. And her eyes faded back from the deep purple, a color that symbolized a rich heritage, to greenish. Pantera felt saddened. Copperhead and crew's finding of her holographic scrapbook reminded her that there was truly no going back to her past. To her, the future seemed bleak. If they ever returned to Cybertron-- she now doubted it-- what would be left to go home to? To herself, she'd left the council because she wished to find and eradicate Rampage; to the general Cybertronian populace, whose knowledge of the Council's workings was limited to their public statements and edicts, she had retired; to the Council, she wagered, and this was merely conjecture on her part, her departure on "her own recognizance" was an excuse to get her off the council and get some actual work done.   
Bastards.   
"Copper?" she called into the echoing cave, her voice near the point of wavering.   
The snake was near the door, and called back. "Something up, mamacat?" He emerged from behind the archway, a blaster and rag in hand.   
"What's going on?"   
"Good question... Megatron went into hiding, the Preds are lawless and pretty much anarchic now that Rampage is in charge. Tarantulas took off to parts unknown with a slew of other Preds after Arachnia defected..."   
"No... I mean where did our loyalty go? You... the last time I saw you outside of trying to blow each other apart, you and Blitzwing were trying to build up a resistance against Deszaras. Then you were one of Megatron's lackeys--"   
"I was never one of his lackeys. If anything, he should've been prostrate at my feet. He was a rogue, and I never once admitted to myself he was above me. I did his dirtywork, but I was never his underling."   
Tera nodded. "So what made you change?"   
"Love. It made you switch over, too, unless I miss my guess." Copperhead crouched, his skidplate hitting the floor as he shifted to sitting. "It was something I could barely fathom myself considering, especially in a time of war. But... there was a moment, when Megatron discovered my treachery, that Tyrannix rushed in, pulled me away from it all... there was a certain amount of spite toward Megs involved when I changed my access codes, but that was incidental to my feelings." Copperhead chuckled, as did Pantera.   
"What made you choose between Maximal and Predacon? You had the opportunity to rule either of them?"   
Pantera's optics flickered a moment as she considered.   
"That's... that's a really long story. It was Felis Convoy, that little red kid from the photos. He affirmed my life on more than one occasion, made me see where my destiny lay. Something about that kid told me that when the time was right, to follow this line, rather than the one Shockwave had planned. It helped, too, that I had those virally-induced dreams. So, as if I knew before it happened, when the Downgrade came around, I picked my allegiance. I became Pantera. Artemis..."   
"Artemis died?"   
"Absolutely not. I'm still the same buttkicker, am I not? I'll still slam your face into a wall then offer to buy you a round." Copper chuckled at that.   
"So you decided to become a Maximal simply because your destiny told you so."   
"No... destiny had a hand there, but it wasn't really my choice whether to follow it. At the time of the great Downsize, I was just as confused about my beliefs as always. Something... happened..." Copper knew from her tone she wasn't particularly ready to talk about the "something", and he almost reflexively sent out a mental probe to bring it forth, but stopped short, knowing that would be counterproductive. He'd try a different approach. Let her tell what she wanted, when she wanted. His curiosity and dependence on instant gratification might take blows, but at least he'd know he was being a "good" bot deep down. He couldn't put his finger on it in particular, but some sense of fairplay had recently emerged in his spark, and he wanted to see where it could take him.   
"Something... happened," Pantera resumed after a short pause. "And it made me think of how I was truly needed. My actions in the interim between the end of the Great War and the Downsizing gave me quite a bit of clout, which I parlayed into something I thought I'd wanted at the time."   
"Political ambition?" Copperhead suggested.   
"Not at first. At first I saw my campaign for a seat on the Council as a way to help Maximals and Predacons and Decepticons and Autobots, but then I realized I had been selfish. Another of the myriad reasons to leave the Council found its way into my subconscious."   
She sighed and leaned forward, scraping a claw against the ashen floor. "Now that I'm here, my decisions are both clearer and more difficult to grasp. I can't abandon myself... the upgrade's taught me that much... but I can't abandon my comrades for the sake of my sanity."   
"It's your decision, Mamacat."   
Pantera's eyeridge arched. "When did you start calling me that, anyway?"   
Copperhead smirked a little, but came up silent. "Dunno... sorta faded into my vocabulary one day. Want me to stop?"   
She hadn't expected THAT. A moment passed as she considered, gazing at Copperhead in a combination of wonder and despair, with a hint of the mischeivous twinkle her optics used to show. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I kinda like it-- kinda reminds me of those I miss." A long pause silenced them both as they considered the past.   
Copperhead knew without asking that she meant Jaxyl, her young ward who'd been mercilessly slaughtered a few months before. The attack had strengthened her resolve to bring Rampage down, strengthened the odd bond she felt with Depthcharge, and considerably weakened the scant hold she felt on her own sanity.   
"Do you think I'm nuts?" she asked at length.   
"No. Never did." He shook his head resolutely. "Maybe a little onorthodox, but trust a psychic on this... I know nuts when I see it. You were always determined, to the point of a psychosis, maybe, but you always had a reign on your faculties. I envy you for that, to tell the truth. But there's a difference between being totally, Webworld-certifiably out of your gourd--" he began, to be cut off with Pantera's snort of "Galvatron." "--and having strong convictions. I've thought of you as a zealot before."   
Pantera wasn't satisfied. "I wanted to hear a 'yes' so my mind could rest easier. If someone confirmed what I felt, I'd know I wasn't nuts for thinking I was nuts."   
Copperhead let out a laugh from deep inside his resonating chamber. "Makes as much sense as the temporal paradox we're in..."   
"Or the fact you're with winged, tall and shiny when you used to be as much of a skirt-chaser as Blitzwing?" Pantera chuckled, tail swishing cheerfully.   
"That works."   
Pantera gazed thoughtfully at her old comrade, someone with whom she'd shared so much over the years, and with whom she'd lost even more. She was about to say something along the lines of a thank-you, but as luck would have it, something big was about to happen.   
  
****Earth: Indeterminate Timeframe**   
"Hurry up!" Tarantulas screamed. "Damnable arthropod, you're a worse assistant than the she-spider was!"   
"At least," Sin grunted, "I have wings." She hauled on the container, using all her strength to push upward, finally bringing it lurching off the ground. "Jet boosters, too... but you... must have a singularity in here..."   
"As a matter of fact..." the spider chuckled. He transformed into his quasi-motorcycle mode, spun his wheels a moment, and zipped off, leaving the moth to finish the job he had begun.   
"For the love of..." she snorted, pushing forward. "Hope Katana's having worse problems..."   
Indeed, the thecodont was. As Tarantulas referred to "the help" as damnable, so did the help consider him. "That damnable bellycrawler!" he roared, harnessed like a sleddog, groaning and grinding his own storage drum forward. "I will show him the meaning of humiliation... mark my words..."   
"Best not to aggrivate him," came the answer from his other compatriot, the immense hyena Lockjaw. "He's capable of inflicting massive amounts of pain and torture upon all of us should his wrath be riled..."   
"I... liked you better... as a drooling imbecile," Katana snarled.   
"Shut up, both of you!" the leader ordered. Of the three pulling beasts, Fangstriker was doing the most work, hauling her hardest on the other two canines in addition to pulling most of the load. She'd barely shown signs of fatigue. "I'll snap your interface conduits off so fast you'll be rhyming like Wheelie before you can--"   
A buzzing shot sizzled past her nose. "Tarantulazzz not paying you to bicker, zzkeleton-bot," came Waspinator's drone.   
"Tarantulazzz not paying us," Fangstriker snarled in return. "Since when are you mister slavedriver? You used to be afraid of Tarantulas like he was scraplets or something..."   
"Wazzpinator know zpiderbot'z zzzecret! Wazzpinator exploiting zpiderbot... Wazzpinator zmarter than you think!"   
"Wazzpinator going to get his thorax chomped if he doesn't shut up," Lockjaw barked, only to be greeted with the same buzzing stinger missile ruffling his fur.   
"Pull harder! Tarantulazz want thizz shipment at rendezvous before zzunzzet!"   
"Is anyone other than me tired to death of his speech impediment?" Katana snorted, pushing forward.   
  
Elsewhere again, this time on the lip of the Darkside's former resting place, Dinobot stood silently, wondering.   
"He... is here..." he growled.   
"You think?" Rampage chuckled from behind. "So's my old enemy... something tells me we're not going to live past sunset..." Rampage cast an immense purple claw skyward, then brought it down, tracing the path it would take to set.   
"Damn you," Dinobot muttered, knowing that if Depthcharge succeeded in killing Rampage, Dinobot himself would probably die as well. He also damned his enemy, the stealthy and, to him, until now, dishonorable, Steeljaw. It was him-- and Rampage's ability to see the fear produced by others-- that had made it necessary for the crab and raptor to join together. A fate worse than another death, Dinobot considered.   
  
On the other side of the mountain, Steeljaw was coaching Depthcharge. "You can't simply shout a battlecry and attack... Dinobot would expect that. He probably already knows we're here."   
Depthcharge wished no part of this pep talk. "Whatever... surprise attack or no, Rampage is still more than a match. Depthcharge... Maxim--"   
He was cut off mid-phrase. "Your funeral," Steeljaw relented, shifting phase into his stealth mode.   
Above, the jet-powered manta ray was making his move, openin fire with a strafing blast from the forward mounted energon mortar launcher. It was as if a gigantic fish was spitting at them.   
"RAMPAGE... TERRORIZE!" the crab shrieked, rushing to his robot mode, leaping high into the air, and landing aboard the ray's back. "This time, we're finishing this..."   
"Bring it on, you reject from Unicron's estate sale..."   
"Been practicing that one?" Rampage chuckled, jabbing a claw into Depthcharge's hullplating.   
"First time..." Depthcharge retorted, stabbing at Rampage's armored backside with his devilfish tail. "I got a ton more where that came from." The flying ray engaged a barrel roll, hoping to throw his unwilling passenger off, but no such luck. Rampage was stuck fast. The crab clearly did not want to release.   
  
Steeljaw fared no better. He leapt on Dinobot angrily, restraining him rather than making assaults, hoping to reach his old friend buried deep within the recesses of the clone's mind. "I know you're in there!" he grunted between snaps of the raptor's bone and violet jaws, "you've got to let me in..."   
"NEVER!" Dinobot shrieked, clawing at Steeljaw but making contact with nothing: the cat's reflexes were far too quick, and the moment any foreign contact approached, he would phase shift, sending his body out of this dimensional alignment and into the one a half step forward in time, effectively rendering himself invulnerable. "The Maximals abandoned me to Megatron..."   
"Well then... it is clear... we are at a standstill..." Steeljaw trailed off, two invisible hands still holding Dinobot in place, but the eyes, nose, mouth, body of Steeljaw were gone. Dinobot felt his senses shifting as Steeljaw pulled at his body; the raptor's equilibrium adjusted as his body was turned over and over again, his body being wrestled around by the only tangible part of the feline.   
"Enough!" Dinobot roared with a scratch to his own neck, realizing if he clawed at his own throat, Steeljaw would have to relent if he wanted to keep his fingers.   
"This battle gets us nowhere... show yourself... show your honor," Dinobot gnarled, his tail thrashing behind him in rage.   
"Fine," Steelaw deferred, one leg and another materializing, followed by a torso, a pair of broad bluish silver shoulders, and a fine mane of silvery hair encircling a strong, almost Prime-like, face. "We battle the old fashioned way, since talking you out of your idiocy is counterproductive."   
"Would that you had that idea sooner..." Dinobot chuckled cruelly, optics flashing with a battle rage he had not felt in ages. The two titans leapt at each other, gloves finally off. To the victor went survival. The fallen... eternal rest.   
  
Primal pushed himself hard to get there in time. Rattrap, Snipe-R, and Silverbolt could barely keep pace, but Rhinox, Pantera, Tyrannix, and Copperhead were pacing him easily.   
==What's the story?== Copper sent to the group as a whole, opting to communicate telepathically in order to be heard.   
==Megatron's shown himself...== Primal replied. ==Cheetor sent word from the field that some of the protohumans spotted a great red beast emerging from the ash-flats near the Darkside.==   
==Sounds like a dragon.== Copperhead responded. ==Not Mega's MO to be so secretive, though... something's got to be up.==   
==Something is always up, Copperhead. Megatron's just being patient...==   
==So the upgrade DID drive him nuts== Copperhead joked. Primal stifled a visual smile, but let slip a telepathic one. ==How far?==   
==Only a half dozen klicks. The ash flats are expanding, which might not bode well for the villagers...==   
==Vulcanization. There's record of it around this time in history== Rhinox piped in. ==We could relocate the village.==   
==Out of the question. To interfere with history--==   
Copperhead cut Primal's thought short. ==We are history. There's no escaping it. We need to do what's right.==   
==Coming from a Predacon, that's good to hear== Rhinox responded.   
==You know as well as I do, oldtimer, that the lines were a lot blurrier after the Downsize. You Maximals may have kicked us around--==   
  
Rhinox cut him off with a burst of willpower. ==The Predacons agreed to that in the covenants of the Pax Cybertronia!==   
==NO... the DECEPTICONS did. The Predacons weren't a twinkle in the optics of the Decepticon elders. I don't want to remind you of something that simple.==   
==The Predacons are the result of stolen technology== Rhinox countered. ==Technically, their sheer existence is illegal.==   
==You can't criminalize existence! The Autobots did it with the Decepticons and the Maximals seemed to be playing that game with the Predacons!== Copperhead replied. ==Megatron and his ilk had a point: he wanted to throw off the yoke the Maximals bound us with.==   
==You're not siding with him!== Rhinox blasted.   
==Never! Not even while I served him... Tell him, Tera! I told you just this morning how Megatron was never in command of my destiny.==   
Pantera did not respond telepathically. That was not her way, and Copperhead knew that. She did, however, seem to nod affirmatively as she ran. Copper wasn't certain.   
==He's far too unsubtle a freedom fighter== he continued. ==Stealing the golden disk wasn't exactly the right way to rub the council.==   
He swore he heard Pantera chuckle.   
==At least we agree on something== Rhinox sent, but the conversation ended there.   
A roadblock stood before them.   
The group's flyers set down on a grassy patch at the lip of an immense chasm, at least a kilometer wide and Primus knew how deep.   
"That was not here this morning," Copper noted, peering into the abyss. Silverbolt came up behind him, and gazed down. "We passed through here on the way back from Tera's crashsite..."   
"What could have cut such a swath in so little time?" he muttered.   
"Rhinox," Primal commanded, "did scanners register any seismic activity earlier today?"   
He nodded, and snorted. "Nothing of this magnitude," he replied. "This is several hundred millennia of work here, judging from the erosion." He whipped out his hand scanner, his wonderlust growing. "Good Primus! The chronometric radiation in this area is through the roof... the fabric of spacetime is thinner than an energon membrane... that could have dropped in here from any timeframe!"   
"Any tears?" Optimus asked.   
"Tears heal the split second they're formed... but one billionth of a click is enough time for them to spit something out of time."   
"Time's being rearranged," Copperhead mumbled. "Oh... slag... does anyone realize where we are?!" He stepped back and looked around, and saw behind him the sloping walls of a crater. "Anyone wonder why there's this much lush vegetation growing on a three-week old crater?"   
Rhinox stepped forward, inadvertantly kicking aside a scrap of rusted, burnt metal. He knelt to pick it up and realized what it was. "Piece of the Metalhunter," he grumbled.   
"Yeah. This is where Skyfire's ship exploded. And since he was crawling with extra-timeline radiation, he..." Copper stopped short, blinking, optics shifting colors from their neutral bluish hue to lavender, then to a raging, boiling verdant green. "Son of a glitch, he's HERE!"   
  
Pantera immediately sprung to attention, her hackles raising. Through a snarl, she confirmed. "Just when I thought he was out of my life for good..."   
Both the telepathic serpent and the quasi-empathic feline turned, looking for signs of the cockatrice.   
"Do you see him?" she asked.   
"No, but I can sense him," he sneered. "It's not pleasant."   
Neither of them noticed the rest of the party vanishing. Primal went first, banished to some Primus-forsaken abyss. Snipe-R, Rattrap, and Silverbolt followed. Tyrannix tried signalling his love, but was unsuccessful, and evaporated, too.   
Copperhead felt even more uneasy as the mist rolled in over the lip of the scarred crater. "Where are you?"   
_Oh big brother you dishonor me._   
"No brother of mine, you little brat..."   
Pantera looked around and spat at the absence of her comrades. "Copper... look..."   
He cast a circular glance. "Where are they?"   
_A place of no consequence... it's the two of you I'm interested in._   
"So you disrupted spacetime? Endangered the fabric of the universe?" Pantera demanded. "What do you want?!"   
_In due time, Arty. Do you remember..._   
Suddenly, they were on Kiribas.   
"I remember this..."   
_Of course you do._   
Pantera stepped forward, but her foot caught on something. She looked down and gasped. There lay motionless the corpse of the taskmaster, Wormtongue. A small Decepticon transport, he was a bot of no consequence. Copperhead remembered Parseltongue's feelings in relation to him: he was an annoying toadie that he, as Parseltongue, would like to have seen dead. But the scene was different. Wormtongue never died. The scene sprung to life-- the corpse at Tera's feet vanished.   
_"Come back here!" Parseltongue shouted after Artemis, but a laserbolt sizzling by him informed him she was going to escape. Wormtongue came up behind him, brandishing a pistol and firing at Artemis, but another bolt cracked him right between the eyes. He skittered along the blacktop_   
to rest at Pantera's toes. She stifled a gasp.   
"That's a lie!" she roared. "Artemis did not kill wrecklessly!"   
_Wanna bet?_ Starscream's presence snickered.   
The scene changed again   
_as trees appeared at a calm lakeside. Large evergreens-- spruces-- towered at the shoreline, a perfect hiding place for anyone who wished it. Two children stood at the shore, throwing stones into the water. "Eric," the girl chided. "Like this." And she threw a rock into the lake, watching it slide along the surface numerous times.   
From the nearby treestand, a black and blue femmebot emerged. Pantera sneered. Clearly another lie. She never set foot at Parseltongue's little spy games. She raised her arm and fired a shot from her wrist blaster, the bolt lancing through him as a bright orange dagger on his sillhouette. He fell, bloodlessly, into the water. His sister died next to him, wordlessly._   
"You expect me to believe this load of slag?" Parseltongue scoffed. "You're getting your memories mixed up, Screamer. These aren't ours."   
_Who said anything about memories? These are your wishes. Arty... you wished you could kill without remorse. You want to be like me. Coldblooded and without a care..._   
"Stop this!"   
_Oh... let's show Arty YOUR wish... A pause. ...freak,_ the presence chuckled.   
_Cybertron. Darkmount, precisely. The Stronghold. Liege Furio in his office, Parseltongue behind, arms crossed behind him, awaiting something.   
"You've done well, my protege," Furio smiled. "But there is something you have failed in--"   
The liege was cut off, his mouth open in mid-sentence. A blast wound smoked in his stomach. "Failure... is not my creed..." the Seeker retorted, stepping out of the room.   
Another scene change... to the interior of Brainstorms Bar, in Polyhex.   
"Arty..." Parseltongue whispered into the aural of a well-built blue and black femme. "Come to my quarters... I'll show you new methods of interface you never saw."_   
Pantera chuckled. "I'm flattered, Copper."   
"Sorry to disappoint you, Mamacat... but I always saw you as a bratty little sister. Starscream's trying to mess with our minds again." The presence seemed to quiver, as if laughing.   
_You can lie to yourselves all you want, children; it does not change the destinies for which you were born._   
"Oh no," Tera muttered. "He's serious this time... whenever he talks about destiny, it's something I can't ignore."   
Copperhead nodded in agreement. "This sounds familiar."   
_It should. Do you recall... this scene?   
The alley in front of an Autobot storage facility. Blitzwing, the Combaticons, Parseltongue, and Tera... Cavalier and Starscream, there in spirit._ Now, instead of the two seeing themselves in a past setting, Copperhead looked directly into Blitzwing's optics, as Artemis did with Onslaught.   
_"Looks like we're part of the show," Copper noted, receiving an odd look from Blitzwing.   
"This feels real," Tera replied.   
"Right down to Blitzy's mental... crap. It IS real!"   
The two felt waves of disorientation for a moment, then..._   
  
"What's real, Parseltongue?"   
Copperhead felt his body changed... he remembered the fleeting comforting feeling of being in a Decepticon shell again.   
"Our... return to glory," he faked. Primus, what was Starscream doing?   
The triplechanger nodded, lightly pounding on the Seeker's shoulder.   
A voice hissed in Parseltongue's and Artemis's aurals. "Don't be fooled... this isn't real... or is it?"   
==Quit jerking us around== Copper jabbed at the ethereal mote that was Starscream.   
==Jerking you around... I've only just begun. Get to Kiribas... there all will be explained.==   
It came back to Kiribas. Of course! The crashsite.   
==He wants us to rescue him, I think,== he sent to Artemis, hoping she'd pick up on it, and not reject him, as usual.   
==What makes you think that?== She knew the importance of not being detected, thank Primus.   
==Kiribas is kind of important. Metalhunter crashed there. That's where Starscream's and Tigerhawk's corpses should be.==   
==But they were vaporized== she returned, while speaking the dialogue she could barely remember.   
==Could've been displaced... maybe flung far into the future.==   
"Even if we've gotta do it at gunpoint, we'll 'convince' Shockwave somehow," he said aloud now, trying to recall the original dialogue.   
==We'll follow them to Kiribas. Under cloak, or something. Was there any stealth equipment in your little 'gift' to us?==   
==I dunno... Find some pretext to inspect it!== she ordered telepathically.   
"Arty," Parseltongue said, breaking the conversation with the Combaticon commander Onslaught. "How do I know you're not pulling a Swindle on us?"   
The Jeep Combaticon snorted indignantly.   
"Feel free to do an inspection. An inventory pad is attached to each pallet."   
He stepped to the door, rolled it up, and walked into the storage bay, casting mock-disapproving glances over the materiel. "Twenty gross energon bullets, heavy gauge... thirty gross medium gauge... a hundred gross light gauge... She IS trying to pull a Swindle," he chuckled. "First stage stealth shield, armor enhancing forceshielding, assorted melee weapons..." The manifest was in order. He noted the position of the stealth shield. "Load this into Astrotrain, would you?" he asked Brawl and Blitzwing. "But leave the pallet in quadrant A-3 here. There are a few items I'd like to add to my personal stash."   
The two didn't argue, and went right to work, being berated by Blitzwing's human Targetmaster partner, Plotz.   
Parseltongue returned to Artemis. ==News?== he asked telepathically, making smalltalk on the verbal side.   
==Cav seems oblivious to the switch... this might still be a trick.==   
_No trick,_ offered Starscream's presence-- it was clear they were still under his sway, as his spark wasn't the one to answer. It neither proved nor disproved the authenticity of the surroundings, though, and this made Copper remain suspicious.   
Soon enough, the Combaticons were loaded into Astrotrain and the shuttle/locomotive hybrid was off, leaving Artemis, Parseltongue, and the two sparks.   
==What happened after this?== she queried.   
==I barely remember. I think I died shortly hereafter... I know you and I parted ways.==   
==You weren't involved with the Kiribas mission?==   
==I got sidetracked.==   
==How?==   
==I don't want to talk about it.==   
Cavalier's spark murmered something to Artemis.   
"She says we can talk aloud, now... and that she knows something's up."   
"Cav... what's going on?" Parseltongue demanded, tuning in on the kid's ghost.   
"Screamer keeps muttering about Destinies... it's bugging me." The spirit-mote flickered somewhat. "Yours and his intertwined..." It quivered, as if unsure. "Whatever that means. You guys aren't acting like yourselves... your sparks are identical, but they seem... older."   
"I just remembered... I wasn't here when you made the dropoff! Starscream's done it again."   
The setting shifted.   
  
_They were standing on the same landing strip at Kiribas._   
"Another fake, I'd presume."   
"He needs to stop this... what's he trying to accomplish?" Copperhead muttered. He looked himself over. He'd returned to his Transmetal II body.   
"How many barriers will we have to break down to get him to drop the act?"   
"Maybe there's something he's trying to show us... a hint. How to get off prehistoric Terra."   
"Well, since nobody seems to be noticing us--" he noted, looking around. Kiribas was a lot busier than it had been under his command, but no one seemed to notice two Maximals from 400 years in the future. "--we could probably get into the main structure unnoticed. Maybe our answers are there."   
"What answers?" Tera complained. "We know this is where Starscream's corpse is... or parts thereof."   
"Maybe he wants us to rescue him."   
"Destiny... it wants the shell back," Copperhead stated blankly. "I have a hunch that Skyfire's shell, purged of Starscream's spark, plays some all-important role in what Screamer's superiors are trying to get him to do. But how do we, as ghosts, get what we're looking for?"   
"Cav?" Tera called into the aether.   
"You rang, bigbot?" the tiny mote responded, as if on cue.   
Tera's expression softened. "When are you?"   
"Sometime in the early 21st century... 2017 or so. Right about the time Parseltongue sent his Combaticon goons to kick Deszaras's junk off Kiribas."   
She peered at Copper, who peered back. "Perfect timing. Get a hold of Onslaught and tell him that as soon as he's finished taking care of business with Shockwave to meet us out here."   
"Sure thing, mamacat."   
_Another illusion broke._   
"Okay Starscream, drop the charade," Pantera snarled. "My patience is really wearing thin."   
_Fine, fine, but if I end this, it'll be ages before you get to find out your destiny. Cavalier and I are trying to hurry it along... the Grand Game won't allow cheating, but it will let us bend the rules somehow by giving the two of you clues._   
"Clues? Grand Game?" Copperhead chuckled. "Surely, Screamer, you jest."   
No jest. You are pawns. Strong, intelligent, integral pieces to the game, but pawns nonetheless.   
"End it."   
If that is your wish. The gamesmasters say we must comply if it is your desire...   
The charade faded, and the two were standing on the precipice overlooking the crater yet again. Time was still shredded, and now...   
The base! Kiribas base-- in its entirety-- lay at the bottom of the crater, as if plucked out of time.   
"Another trick," the femme growled, her colors shifting in agitation.   
"This is no charade... its... smell... is different." Copperhead dropped down to beast mode and flicked his tongue. "Definitely. There was no smell inside Starscream's little game."   
Pantera shifted to beast mode as well, nostrils flaring. "You're right... I hadn't noticed it before."   
"He's down there! Starscream's spark..." Copperhead began.   
"It's trying to--" Pantera interrupted.   
"Reclaim the body!" they finished simultaneously.   
Pantera immediately burst into the crater body, clambering down the almost sheer face toward the main building. Copperhead was close behind, latching onto Pantera's bladed tail, literally by the skin of his teeth. He could barely make time to coil himself around her tail as she sped, but it was no matter. In due course-- about three seconds-- the two had reached the base.   
"Stay in beast mode or risk detection?"   
"He knows we're here," Copperhead shook his head. "Either way…" Copperhead sprung to his feet, his snake body splitting in two, then five, attaching itself to his wrists and shins, and around his neck, over his shoulders. Two triangular red crystals gleamed on his chest, their border looping down and wrapping around a third red crystal on his stomach. This crystal was differently shaped than the other two-- a perfect half sphere, with a nebulous Maximal emblem within that seemed to hang there unaided. It was from that gem, and from the Y-Shaped charm on his forehead, that sprang Copperhead's unique telepathic abilities.   
A heavy shoulder-butt and the door was off its hinges. Odd, Copperhead thought, considering that he was human and the door was built to allow even the largest of Transformers within. Worries, he chuckled inwardly, would only hinder progress. "Smell anything?"   
"It reeks of Starscream," Pantera retorted. "Let's make this quick."   
  
Make it quick, indeed. Above hovered the grim black and violet form of the oldest of Decepticon battle cruisers, yet at this point in time, the vessel was relatively new and up-to-date. On the bridge the Nemesis chuckled the madness of Megatron.   
"Time has passed since they faded from our existence," the red-gold tyrant snorted. "Yet their return has prompted much speculation, yess… and the appearance also of her old comrade. Dinobot," he muttered, knowing that the bone raptor's aurals would easily catch the command. He snarled a response.   
"Transform and bring power to the main cannon."   
The clone narrowed his optics derisively, a motion Megatron did not catch, and shifted into his hunchbacked, blade-ensconced mech form. He slowly clanked over to a large, vertical display monitor and slid a claw across its control panel.  
"Cannon is seventy-four percent charged, Lord Megatron," he replied in his tinny gutteral snarl.   
"More power."   
"That is not wise."   
Dinobot felt a twinge in his half-formed spark. "Not wise?" Megatron growled. "Do not forget who owns your very life." With Megatron's threat, and a punctuating jab to his soul, Dinobot complied, diverting the engine coolant systems' power to the weapons array.   
  
Below, deep beneath the waves, Rampage howled with laughter, as two silver, four-fingered hands wrapped around his neck. "You've eluded me too long, you sick bastard!" Depthcharge spat, making sure his adversary heard every word. "It's been my ambition for decades to end this."   
Rampage let out a choking yet chilling peal of laughter. "Silly fishie. Killing me means losing the one you care about."   
Depthcharge was nonplussed by this revelation. "There's nobody else here."   
"Perhaps not… but you'll never see your beloved Pantera again."   
Then the manta dealt his trump card. Almost touching Rampage's antenna was a long, wickedly jagged spear of raw crystalline energon. "Eat this, X!" In a swift motion, Depthcharge's hand shot toward the energon, snapped at the base, and pulled it back, driving it down into Rampage's chest. "Pure energon right through your twisted spark!"   
  
Anyone within twenty kilometers of the two would have seen the explosion. So violent was the energy discharge released as Depthcharge murdered Rampage that the water displaced from their battle rained down on the earth for days afterward. In his final vengeance in the names of all those killed during the decades he sought Protoform X's noxious spark, chasing the crab across countless outposts, uncharted regions of space, fighting the demon to a standstill on barren worlds, Depthcharge gave his very essence. But in death, the noble yet grating manta ray Transformer-- truly a Maximal in spark and spirit-- ensured the lives of countless others in the future. Rampage would murder no more.   
  
As she rushed forward down the corridors of Starscream's game room, Pantera felt a twinge in her right shoulder, a pain she often felt when those she loved and cared about were in danger, or, when the need arose, when her Decepticon ire was stirred. In this case, it was a mixture of the two: her rage toward Starscream mixed with this new sensation-- she knew it could only be Depthcharge's end-- fueled her and prodded her determination further. "Starscream!" she wailed, almost reminding herself of an old friend, jetting down the hall, blasting walls out of the way to get to the central chamber of this maze. She and Copperhead knew what lay in the center.   
  
Primal jetted skyward, his optics straining against the wind resistance from the extreme speed. The Nemesis was above, blasting at him with its tractor beam, forcibly yanking Optimus Primal, and the Autobot shuttle known as the Ark from its mountain resting place. He hadn't much time, he thought. Megatron must be stopped, no matter the cost.   
Below, those Predacons left behind stood on the rocky ground. Inferno, Quickstrike, and Waspinator, warriors three of Megatron's regime-- of the last truly loyal to him-- prepared themselves for their task: obliterate the protohuman village. If there were no humans, went Megatron's hypothesis, there would be no assistance to the Autobots once the Ark reawakened them. There would be no Sparkplug Witwicky to fix the hurts of Optimus Prime; no Marissa Fairborne to embed herself into the affairs of Galvatron and the Decepticons; no incompetent Dr. Archeville to befoul the perfect plans of Megatron the Primeslayer. No resistance at all.   
"Wazzpinator not zo zure thizz good idea."   
"The Royalty does not care what the Flying One is sure of. The Royalty has assigned us a task and we must do it without quarrel."   
"Ah'm with Waspy here… ain't slaggin' Maxies wut we were sent to do?"   
"The objective at hand is all," replied Inferno. "The meat bots will roast…"   
"Wazzpinator zzick to death of objective at hand! Wazzpinator zzick of taking orderzz from antbot! WAZZPINATOR ZZICK TO DEATH OF BEING MEGATRON'ZZ LAPDOG! Come on, Twoheadzz, if Antbot wishes deathzz of inozzent humanzz on hizz conzzienzze, that hizz prerogative." Waspinator reached to his shoulder and dug a claw in, pulling at the patch of armor emblazoned with the Predacon sigil, then throwing it on the ground, stomping it flat with the heel of his boot. For good measure, he drew his dartgun and fired three shots into it, until it was nothing but slag. "Twoheadzz?" Waspinator said to Quickstrike.   
"Ah… can't. Maybe you got sum differn't programming' in ya, but I can't go 'gainst wut Bossbot done put in my circuits… Best git 'fore I hafta start shootin'."   
But it was too late to "git."   
  
Starscream had "convinced" a posse to join him. All of them femmes, all of them with their sparks so twisted under the sway of the ghost's power. None of them retained any of the characteristics that made them individual. All were simply shells.   
"Their minds are gone," Copperhead said through gritted teeth, on the verge of tears. "He's spark-raped them into catatonia…"   
Sin snarled at him, with Calamity and Intrigue moving toward Pantera. Fangstriker and Constrictor flanked the moth to the left and the right.   
Fight them. Their lives are already forfeit.   
"I refuse."   
_Then your life is forfeit. The rules of the game._   
"Screw the game!" Pantera roared. "You and your Primus-damned game can…"   
_Calm, Arty_   
"STOP CALLING ME ARTY!" she shrieked, pushing the encroaching females back. "I am Pantera. Artemis became part of Pantera, not the other way 'round! I…" Her eyes, shoulder, and body as a whole flared a bright fuchsia, the color of Decepticon rage.   
_Now fight! You will die if you don't! Fight for your insignificant lives!_   
Copperhead saw no other choice, but Pantera had sworn herself an oath. She would never take a life again.   
"Mamacat, listen," he growled. "If you don't…"   
"If I don't, Starscream says the game is forfeit."   
Copperhead was out of time. Constrictor was upon him, clawing, and there was nothing he could do but fight back. "We've fought worse than this," he called to Pantera. "They're not really alive! Their minds are gone… just make sure their sparks are safe!"   
Pantera's eyes flashed in realization, and she sprung herself on the nearest femmebot. Fangstriker fell almost silently-- definitely painlessly-- her main fluid line cut, core processor severed in a simple motion from Pantera's bladed tail. The headless-- and now, graciously, sparkless-- Fangstriker crumpled, the blue mote shifting from her chest into the aether, returning to whence it came.   
"One down!" Copperhead called, elbowing the liquid form of Constrictor in the gut. "Take Sin out next!"   
One down indeed. Good work…   
Pantera whipped her tail around and cleft one of Sin's wings from its mooring. The near-undead Sin gave out a shrill cry as she turned her attention to Pantera. "I do this for your future life," Pantera muttered, impaling Sin on her tail-tip.   
Calamity and Intrigue were next to fall, reluctantly obliterated by Pantera.   
Copperhead was still at it with his target, the only one left. "Constrictor… listen!" he shouted, jabbing her spark and core processor repeatedly. "Come on! You're in there, Garrotte… whatever happened to that frightened little hotheaded Viper from Tokyo? She's in there!"   
Constrictor's eyes remained blank, the dark violet crystalline disc between her breasts the only light on the dull grey body.   
"It's no use… if I have to end this…"   
He drew his staff from subspace and drove the end into the concrete bunker floor, sending a spider web of electric pulses along the surface. Her metal body attracted the spark perfectly, drawing the energy off of Copperhead's standard into her own body. "Now or never," he muttered, bringing the staff up and driving the head it into Constrictor's stomach. The liquid metal quickly enveloped Copperhead, convulsing to his bodily contours, suffocating the snake within. Within moments, the mercuric form of Constrictor had fully entered Copperhead's framework, and the shells both fell with a loud splat. Both were dead-- Copperhead's spark shot upward, a green plume rocketing it upward until, in a verdant flash, the spark had vanished. The purple crystal that had once imprisoned Constrictor's essence-- as crystals of other tints did the same with the other Transmetals-- was now an empty chip of grey quartz. The red jewel on Copperhead's belly rolled away, as colorless as Constrictor's.   
They were dead, and Pantera was alone.   
_Not quite alone… you'll always have me, Arty._   
"That's not much consolation," she said dryly. "Now what?"   
_Now…_ Pantera felt a thrumming in the chamber, as if the floor was being bored into. _Now._ "Now I return to the land of the living."   
Pantera's gaze shot to the center of the chamber, beneath rigging that looked as if it was meant to raise a coffin, came a jet of dust, as if the rock beneath the floor were being pulverized. Then, the all-too-familiar rustling of wings.   
"Even a fossilized robot mode is better than nothing…" hissed a voice that echoed off every wall in the chamber. From within the cloud of dust, a shape emerged-- lithe in most respects, but blocky near his hands and shoulders, as if…   
His torso was made almost entirely out of stone, crusted with the fossils of ammonites long dead, which seemed to break at his waist. His face, scarred and pocked with millions of years of decay, was still covered with that mirrored mask, but this was stone, polished by the waves. "It is you…"   
"Oh, yes, it is."   
  
"Die!" Megatron bellowed, blasting with his left hand-- the head of a dragon-- while clutching the bulkheads with his right.   
"Not today!" Primal responded.   
"It sayeth in the Covenants of Primus that you WILL die at my hand!"   
"It also says that the tyrant shall be betrayed…"   
"Let the pieces fall where they may, Optimal Optimus!" Megatron roared again, firing a bolt of freezing liquid nitrogen at his adversary, catching the great orange and blue gorilla's shoulder in the blast. Primal yelled at the assault, rolling to the side, his shoulder unit crumbling in the motion, but for the most part, Primal was unscathed.   
"Your greatest warriors have been brought to their knees before me," Megatron laughed, firing randomly and with reckless abandon, "so what makes you think you shall fare better?"   
"Because Primus said so!" A blast from his boot jets brought Optimus careening into Megatron's midsection, shoulder guns firing, ripping holes in the Predacon dragon's wings and chest armor. "You're finished!"   
"Never!" Megatron roared, his left hand chomping down on Optimus's armor.   
"Stalemate," Primal grunted, shifting his body ever so little that his rifle was now jabbed into the dome protecting Megatron's spark. "You open fire, I blast you into oblivion, yet there's a chance I'll survive."   
"Fine!" Megatron snarled, clamping harder and ripping another chunk from the vermilion shoulder armor. Primal rolled off, rifle still unstrapped and cocked, and, while Megatron was reconnoitering himself, Primal fired off a few rounds from the rifle, each bolt singing into Megatron's armor.   
"That was a mistake, Optimal Optimus… and your friends shall now pay for it with their lives."   
  
Skyfire stood, starting at Pantera malevolently. "The game is afoot, dear Pantera." His voice was abnormally deep, and he called her Pantera, for once. "Soon, everything will align itself."   
"As psychotic as ever," Tera sneered.   
"We're leaving," he ordered, alighting on his rusted metallic feet and striding toward her. "Your shuttle will be taking off soon… you might want to gather these corpses. There is a net bag on the far wall you may use to carry them."   
"Your hands can't be sullied with the bodies of those you've murdered? Is that it?"   
"No, my hands would crumble to dust were they to exert any force at all."   
Tera shook her head, gathering up the pieces of those she could not help but slaughter, throwing them with dull clanks into the sack. She came across Copperhead, sprawled across the concrete floor, and knelt at his side, overcome with emotion.   
"What the hell were you thinking?" she muttered to him. "This was my battle! I was supposed to die. You… you're the arrogant Decepticon who only cares about himself. You're the merciless Pred that…"   
"Pantera," Starscream called, his voice edged with determination and what seemed like fury, "we must go now."   
"Give me a moment," she replied, with the same tone. She knew how to handle Starscream.   
"There is no moment. I must get off this Primus-forsaken planet soon."   
"Go without me."   
Starscream, never one to worry about another further than the length of his own null cannon, turned to the door and stalked out, leaving Pantera alone.   
"You hurt so many in the past," she whispered to Copperhead's prone form, "but then you changed. Why? Why could you change while I stayed the same? I couldn't possibly…"   
The room began to rumble, drawing Pantera's attention away from the fallen serpent. "No time for that."   
Displaying strength not expected from her lithe frame, Pantera hauled on Copperhead's vertebral column, lifting him almost effortlessly, as she slung his body over her shoulder. "You got heavier," she chuckled, scrambling forward toward the makeshift exit she'd created only minutes before.   
  
The smoke was thick… Inferno's carcass lay next to the burnt out shell of Quickstrike's, but Waspinator-- and the human village behind him-- were safe. Megatron's cannon had misfired. Above, the Nemesis hung silently, its cannon sucking in atmospheric hydrogen for another shot. It could fire again, but not for several minutes. Waspinator was no tactical genius-- or so he'd told himself many times-- but he knew a sitting duckiebot when he saw one.   
"Nemezzizz izz defenzelezz," he thought aloud, looking at the frozen vessel that could barely hold itself aloft. "Maximalzz would do good to zztrike while iron izz hot…" Behind him, two proto-human children, squawked and grunted at the sight. "Wazzpinator hate babyzzitting," he buzzed.   
  
"How'd you know there'd be a shuttle here," Cheetor asked as Rhinox battered the controls.   
"A little snake told me," the gruff technician responded slyly.   
Cheetor shrugged, and strapped himself into the makeshift seats they'd set up. "I don't remember coming with this many Maximals," he chuckled, placing his hand over Blancwulf's. The femme lupine smiled at him and sidled closer.   
"Everyone buckled in? Silverbolt, head count," Rhinox ordered from the controls.   
"Rattrap."   
"Here," he called from under the seat.   
"Blackarachnia."   
"Need you ask?" she answered coyly.   
"Blancwulf, Inuarai, Cheetor."   
"Hello," Wulfie sang.   
"Hello," Nari responded, a half step above.   
"Helloooooooooooooooooo," Cheetor howled in a register so broken it made Rhinox cringe.   
Silverbolt dryly checked the next names on his list. "Snipe-R."   
"Check," he snored, head leaning against the bulkhead.   
"Silvermane."   
The short femme nodded silently.   
"Steeljaw."   
There was, of course, no answer. If he stayed on Terra, he would do his best to guard the planet. That was all he really cared for. Defend Terra… He claimed he'd lived there so long that during the Wars that spending the rest of his natural life on a planet he loved so would be better than returning to Cybertron. Primal had allowed it.   
"My brother, thou shalt be missed." Silverbolt closed his eyes and smiled somewhat. "All present and accounted for. Tyrannix will rendezvous with us at the Peaks."   
Rhinox nodded, pressing the controls to release the Autobot shuttle from its mooring clamps. Rhinox had gambled that the tractor beam would move the Ark into a position so that the shuttle could leave, and had won that wager: the docking port was now clear, and the shuttle could blast its way out of the mountain. Smiling Primus Syndrome, Rhinox joked.   
The shuttle began to roar deeply as the engines charged. The landing struts ground forward, and each Maximal felt the force of gravity pushing them toward the back of the vehicle. "Hang on."   
  
Tyrannix circled, scanning the area over and over again, still not gathering any pertinent data on Copperhead's location. In fact, that building beneath him seemed to be so dense with chronometric radiation that no scan was really possible. He'd have to rely on optic sensors and--   
Someone was leaving the bunker! Tyrannix shot downward, aided by the two jetpacks beneath his wings, until he saw exactly who was exiting. "Good Primus… you're alive!" he gasped to himself. The form below him looked up, as if it knew he was coming.   
"Your logic is flawed, as I can never die," Starscream responded.   
Transforming, Tyrannix readied his weapons and landed heavily. "What were you doing in there? Why has your form changed?"   
"All in due time, dear lizard. Your beloved Copperhead is within, as is Pantera."   
"What?!" Tyrannix roared, a glimmer of hope mixed in with his fury-- the love of his life was alive! "If you've harmed him…"   
"I have not," Starscream responded, telling a half-truth. The Maximal warrior rushed past him, through the broken down entrance-- now it was clear who that door had been designed for!-- and tore down the corridor, his footfalls echoing out of the building.   
Inside, he halted, stone dead in his tracks, at the sight of the building's other occupants. Pantera trudged down the hallway, blindly, not even noticing Tyrannix at the other end, until she automatically stopped.   
"Lady Pantera…" he gasped, looking at the satchel of parts, then at the body she carried. "By the Matrix."   
He plucked Copperhead's body from Pantera's shoulder, holding it gingerly so as not to damage it. "Oh, Primus… You cannot die twice… Please…" Tyrannix dropped to his knees, weeping.   
  
The moment Rampage had died, Dinobot fell to his knees, trilling the word "Victory", before himself falling prey to the same shard of death that had claimed his spark-brother Rampage. Megatron was not at all concerned with this, focused solely on the obliteration of the Ark. Not on my watch, Primal swore, finally gathering enough strength to finish this. He blasted forward, catching Megatron totally off-guard, pushing the two out the main view port and into the sky. Leaving the now-adrift Nemesis behind them, Primal shoved down, flaring his jets as hard as they could burn, hoping to push Megatron into the ground.   
"Primus guide me," he thought, as the two drove into the rocky mountainside.   
When the dust and smoke cleared, Megatron was unconscious, and Primal hoped he'd stay that way long enough. "Optimus Primal to Rhinox," he called weakly into his comm, bracing himself against the mountain wall.   
"Rhinox here… everything copasetic?"   
"Affirmative," he responded with a tired smile. On the horizon, the flaming wreck of the Nemesis was now crashing into the other side of the mountain chain. Good riddance, Primal thought.   
Within moments, the stolen Autobot shuttle hovered before him, Rhinox offering a thumbs up from his station at the helm. "Let's get him tied down…" he ordered, throwing Megatron onto the nose of the shuttle. "Then we need to make a trip back to the Ark. Megatron has a dropoff to make."   
  
"You're going to stand trial on Cybertron," Tyrannix said, glaring at Starscream. "For murder, treason, and violations of the Pax Cybertronia."   
"And what will the punishment be? Death sentence? I'd figure the Maximal Council would realize killing me is more futile than going up in battle against hungry Sharkticons."   
"There are more effective sentences than execution, Starscream," Tyrannix replied coldly. "You will pay."   
"We shall see," the cockatrice said, reverting to his beast mode and strutting to the base of the crater.   
"Where are you going?" the dragon demanded.   
"Home. Your friends have discovered an Autobot shuttle that will allow them access to Cybertron. Follow me and you will return to your home, as well."   
Warily, Tyrannix followed, Pantera close behind, as the three trudged wordlessly up toward the lip of the crater. The echoing boom of the crashing Nemesis, far off in the distant mountains, still echoed through the valley and rumbled in the crater. The sound reminded Tyrannix that time was short. In his last communication, Optimus Primal had informed the dragon that, at long last, the Maximals had discovered a way off this rock.   
"Come on, Starscream," Tyrannix conceded, shifting to beast mode. He flapped his wings once, and was in the air, flapped them again, and had one of his immensely taloned forepaws wrapped around Starscream's midsection, as his other clutched Pantera. Safely in his mouth-- after numerous playful threats in the past that he would devour the much smaller serpent-- was the still form of Copperhead, laying at peace.   
Within moments, the Autobot shuttle came into view, as Tyrannix jetted toward it. Quickly, the main hatch was opened, admitting the immense golden-winged beast within. Now, the shuttle was not only full, but downright cramped, as Tyrannix, in his massive Transmetal II state, had to curl into as tight a ball as possible. Starscream was immediately placed in energy binders, and, for good measure, deep stasis lock. Pantera sat next to him, silent and unmoving, in as much a catatonic state as Tyrannix.   
And as the shuttle broke free of the bounds of ancient Earth's gravity, the sounds of Megatron's complaints were pulled into the vacuum of space, and as the shuttle fired its rear boosters, in the process igniting the jury-rigged transwarp engine, the Maximals were on the way home.   
"Bigbot," Cheetor said, "what about Waspinator? We left him planetside…"   
"I doubt he'll be doing any significant damage in the next few million years," Optimus chuckled gravely. "Once we return home, there'll be a cleanup crew sent to put everything right again… I certainly hope the trip is quick."   
  
Below, on a makeshift pile of sticks and stones, a green and black Transformer leaned back, buzzed contentedly, and muttered aloud, "Wazzpinator… happy at last…" Around him, some wild game was roasted on a spit, propped up by the two Scorpion pincer-legs that were formerly part of Quickstrike. A set of drums had been formed out of the cranial units of Inferno, Quickstrike, and Tarantulas, each being played in a different register, while another protohuman blew into a trumpet that oddly resembled a disembodied cobra's head-- and indeed, this was more of what remained of Quickstrike. All this, in honor of Waspinator, for doing the entire planet a great service: the Predacon menace on ancient Terra had been eliminated.   
The Beast Wars were over. 


End file.
